


Brooklyn, 1954

by Space_and_Thyme



Series: We'll Meet Again (Don't Know Where, Don't Know When) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1950s, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Because his Mama raised him right, Brilliant Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Cooks, Bucky Barnes and the 21st Century, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky is a card shark, Bucky's childhood home, Catholic George Barnes, Cuddling & Snuggling, Endgame Fix-It, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Explanations for why Steve couldn't rescue Bucky from HYDRA, F/M, Frottage, Getting Back Together, Grocery Shopping, Hand Jobs, Handfasting, Heirlooms, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Winnie Barnes, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Married Sex, Mentions of Sarah Rogers, Neck Kissing, Peggy Carter Is a Good Bro, Peggy is not your normal '50s housewife, Potato Head Blues, Pregnant Becca Barnes, Red Hook - Freeform, Redemption, Resolved Romantic Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension, Reunion Sex, Seriously I did so much research, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, So Bucky just kinda goes with the flow, Something Borrowed, Something New, Sort Of, Steve Rogers and the 20th Century, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve whines and whimpers a bit, Supportive Becca Barnes, Supportive George Barnes, Supportive Winnie Barnes, Teacher Steve Rogers, Temporal Desert, Time Travel, Time Vortex, Trouble Sleeping, Wedding Rings, accidentally encountering family in a grocery store, but it's kind of 'blink and you miss it', explanations of time travel, like a vacation one or something, mentions of the Avengers' compound, or it's an alternate compound, rebuilt I suppose, small private wedding, something old, technically an illegal wedding but oh well, vinyl records
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 13:07:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20436539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Space_and_Thyme/pseuds/Space_and_Thyme
Summary: It's March of 1954; Steve Rogers has been back in the past, and married to Peggy Carter, for the last four years. It's a life, and a fairly simple one at that, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. Turns out, nostalgia isn't the best reason to make a life decision, especially one regarding what era to live in and how to live.It's been four years, and Steve misses Bucky, like a limb, but it's a decision he's made and no matter what he might want, he can't go back on it now. Besides, there's not enough Pym Particles to change it now anyway. And he can't leave Peggy behind again, can he?And then one day a sudden electrical storm changes everything, and a man he never thought he would see again, is waiting in his home when Steve comes home from work.Bucky's here for a visit - only two weeks before he needs to return to his own time. But with Bucky right in front of him again, Steve's suddenly lost; he's trapped between a rock and a hard place; he made Peggy a promise, but he also loves Bucky with all his heart. Does Steve still have a chance with the actual love of his life, or has he destroyed any chance of that life when he left for a misguided attempt at a life with Peggy?





	Brooklyn, 1954

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, this does include mentions of canon established in my You Are My Lucky Star and Winter's Child series, but it's a shared history, and this fic doesn't belong to the canon of those series. It's nothing major, just a few mentions of their history.
> 
> So I started writing this in May - and most of it was written at that point. But I've been working all summer, and my laptop died so it had to be replaced (thank god I sent the majority of this fic to a friend before the crash, so I could salvage it and simply re-write what was missing, and the ending). I wrote the last twenty or so pages last week, so if the tone of them is slightly different, it's because they were separated from the original chunk by about two to three months. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, so anything weird is on me.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

_Brooklyn. March 1954.  
_   
Steve sighed softly to himself as he carded his fingers back through the damp fringe of his hair. It had been bright and sunny when he left the house that morning; he hadn’t thought to take an umbrella with him. But, lo and behold the sky opened up at around two that afternoon, and the worst storm he’d seen in ages came raining down upon him. It had been his mistake to run out to grab a quick lunch during his free period. He’d had one class left that afternoon, and he’d had to teach thirty uninterested high school students while the shirt stuck to his back and his jacket dripped.

  
He hadn’t heard any weather reports the night before stating that a thunderstorm was expected. Of course, he knew that weather forecasting was hardly an exact science at this time – it hadn’t always been correct in the 21st century either. Still, a little bit of warning would have been greatly appreciated.  
  
Honestly, he’d woken up already in a low mood, and the weather only further exacerbated it. Some days were just like that, and he knew he had to live with it. They had been like that for years – especially after the death of his mother twenty (chronological) years earlier. It’s just that Steve thought he had moved passed this low-level depression once before. Well, probably closer to four times before. It was always after a loss: his mother, Bucky’s fall, Peggy’s death (at least that he had righted now, in one way), and Bucky (and Sam’s) loss to the Decimation. He thought that he was passed it.  
  
Steve took a deep breath as he waited for a moment outside the front door of his own house- briefcase in hand. He knew that Peggy would understand if he told her that he just wasn’t feeling completely sunny today, but he didn’t want to worry his wife. He didn’t want her having to take care of him – they were an equal partnership, but as her husband it was his self-appointed duty to give her as much peace as he could – especially given the demands of her job. So, he stood still for a moment and drew in a deep breath to help centre himself, before he turned the key in the lock of the door. His mind turned blank.  
  
As he turned the door knob and pushed the door open, a slowly spreading truth dawned upon him. Today was the tenth of March, and the knowledge hit him like a brick. Today, March 10th, 1954, was Bucky’s thirty seventh birthday. Bucky, who in this time had been a captive of HYDRA for the last ten years and would remain as such for another sixty. Bucky, whom he’d left behind in the 21st century – today was his one hundred and tenth birthday. It didn’t matter to Steve that time moved a different rate for the two of them – he’d been in the past for the last four years. He could only assume that the same four years had passed for Bucky.  
  
Steve had everything he’d ever wanted – he had Peggy – and yet the absence of Bucky still weighed on his shoulders, on his heart, like weight of the Universe itself. His absence, although Steve at least knew that Bucky – _his_ Bucky – was safe in the future, still felt like a black hole – an open maw that ate away at his peace whenever he lingered too long on those thoughts.  
  
It was already after three o’clock. He couldn’t believe that he’d been stupid enough to forget that today was Bucky’s birthday. Not that he could celebrate it in any way that would ease the aching in his chest, but he wished he had at least remembered.  
  
At least he knew why the day already seemed low before the rains had come. 

Shaking his head free of the dark thoughts, Steve pushed open the front door and stepped inside. He called out as he set his briefcase aside and shrugged off his damp jacket to hang from the coat rack just inside the door. “Pegs? I’m home!” He rolled his broad shoulders lightly and started loosening his tie.  
  
“Steve!” She called back, from the direction of the sitting room. “Steve we have a visitor!” She sounded happy, and Steve smiled despite himself.  
  
“Is that so?” he answered, as he toed off his shoes – only then spotting the pair of men’s oxfords positioned neatly off to the side, nearly under the coat rack. His heart jumped slightly; the care to keep the shoes out of the general walking path was familiar in a heart-breaking way. “Wishful thinking, Rogers. He's gone.” Steve murmured almost silently under his breath as he straightened himself out and headed towards the main sitting room where Peggy and their guest were likely gathered.

When he stepped into the doorway of the sitting room with a smile plastered on his face, it was his wife that he saw first. Peggy was sitting opposite of the door – she smiled up at him in such a genuine manner that his heart fluttered a little. Her position in the room meant that their guest was seated in the wingback chair in front of him – the height of the chair blocked all sight of the man, but Steve could smell the slight traces of tobacco and noticed the faint curl of blue tinged smoke rising from in front of the chair.  
  
“Steve.” Peggy all but hummed happily – her dark eyes sparkling as she sat up a little straighter.  
  
From the corner of his eye, Steve noticed a hand reach to the right and stub out the last dregs of the cigarette into the glass ashtray.  
  
“It’s a miracle, Steve – look who’s come to visit!” all but grinning, Peggy motioned towards the wingback chair.  
  
The man was rising from his seat as Peggy spoke, and the moment Steve’s eyes danced over the mass of chocolate coloured curls, his breath caught in his throat and his heart nearly skipped a beat. He almost didn’t need to see the set of the man’s broad shoulders, almost didn’t need to see his face, to know. The man turned on his heel, coming to face Steve, the moment he was upright. And then Steve’s heart seemed to jump.  
  
Standing in front of him, easy as pie, was Bucky Barnes. His long dark locks had been shorn, back to the style he’d worn before he’d been drafted. The natural curling texture of his hair had returned, now that the weight of the length was gone – the curls were just barely tamed with a thin spread of Brylcreem, unlike the current popular slicked-back style. Of course, Bucky had only ever worn his hair heavily slicked when he was to be seen, properly – at church, mostly. Steve’s eyes quickly skated up and down Bucky – taking in the soft salmon pink short-sleeved dress-shirt, unbuttoned at the top, just enough to show the very top of his white cotton undershirt- and the dark-taupe coloured dress pants he was wearing. Bucky’s hands were in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels slightly, but Steve suddenly gawked.  
  
The black and gold Vibranium arm was completely out of sight – Bucky’s left arm matched his right – all soft-looking olive skin.  
  
It was like looking at a ghost.  
  
And suddenly Steve was that eighteen-year-old kid about to celebrate his nineteenth birthday in Coney Island with the unrequited love of his life all over again.  
  
His mouth was suddenly dry, pasty, and he fought his tongue to breathe out the name lingering on his lips. “Bucky…” it was barely more than a whisper.  
  
Bucky slowly cracked a grin – his grey eyes lighting up. His irises were a perfect mirror of the stormy sky earlier, and Steve absently realize that was probably largely why he disliked the rain. Steve wanted to run and hug him, but propriety stopped him – and Bucky never moved.  
  
Steve swallowed tightly around the lump forming in his throat. “How… there weren’t enough Pym particles –“  
  
Bucky interrupted the thought with an easy shrug of his shoulders. “More than one way’a skinnin’ a cat, Rogers.”  
  
Peggy glanced between the two of them. For all her misgivings about Sergeant Barnes during the war, she saw the way that Steve suddenly flared back to life at seeing his oldest friend. Especially since she knew the history – Steve had been found in the ice in 2011 and found Bucky controlled as a HYDRA slave in 2014. She knew that Steve had come back for her, and in the process left his best friend behind where he was safe. She also knew it weighed on him some days – and today was the worst of them. Bucky’s birthday was always a low day for her husband, even if Steve didn’t realize that Peggy knew.  
  
So, she smiled, seeing some of the weight start to lift off her husband’s shoulders at the sight of James Barnes – the man was like a balm for Steve’s soul. “Steve, James has asked if he could stay for a couple of weeks.”  
  
The moment Peggy started to speak, Steve forced his eyes off his best friend, and focused on his wife. But when he heard what she was saying, he snapped his attention back to Bucky. “You’re staying?” his heart fluttered with joy as his hopes raised.  
  
Bucky chuckled, though it was a little flat – tinged with something that Steve didn’t recognize on Bucky. “Only for a couple’a weeks, pal. Then I gotta go back.”  
  
Steve’s heart immediately plummeted down passed his stomach, and out through his feet. He thought it might have finally stopped, somewhere near the centre of the Earth. “Oh…”  
  
“Come on, pal. Ya know this ain’t my time anymore.” Bucky shrugged with an easy smile.  
  
Steve nodded silently. “Yeah, you’re right…”  
  
“Oh, don’t just stand there like two lumps!” Peggy huffed with a laugh. “Go hug him, Steve!” She waved them off dismissively, and Steve couldn’t help but grin at her forthright nature as Bucky slid his hands out of his pockets and opened his arms.  
  
Steve crossed the short distance between them in two strides – immediately putting his arms around the other man’s ribs and burying his face into Bucky’s neck. He breathed deep, expecting the 21st century familiar scent of leather, honeydew from his shampoo, all overlaid by the faint traces of metal, only to be caught off guard. Instead, Steve found himself enveloped in Bucky’s cologne – a spicy, sharp, fragrance laid over a heady base of chicory – blended with the man’s natural soft musk and the faint smell of Brylcreem in his hair.  
  
Bucky smelled like 1937 all over again.  
  
And Steve hadn’t realized just how much he missed it – just how much he had missed Bucky until the hiccup of emotion slipped from him as he tightened his arms around his best friend. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face into Bucky’s dark hair, and just breathe him deep until his lungs were full and his aching heart settled into a quiet calm.  
  
Bucky hummed quietly and hugged him back – holding Steve close and rubbing his back affectionately. “’s’okay – I’ve got ya...” he murmured softly before lifting his hand and running it back through Steve’s slightly damp hair, disguising the tender nature of the act by fussing with Steve’s fringe. “Still unruly, I see.”  
  
Steve didn’t want to let go – not now that he was there in Bucky’s arms. But he’d made his choice four years prior and although it broke his heart, he eased back from Bucky’s embrace. He sniffed slightly and rubbed his eyes as he huffed a destroyed half-laugh. “I thought I’d never see you again.”  
  
Bucky tilted his head and clucked his tongue against the back of his teeth as he watched Steve for a moment. His eyes were a little colder than Steve expected. “Well, had to say a proper goodbye to my best guy, didn’t I?” he smiled and though it may have looked perfectly friendly to Peggy, Steve saw the ice in it.  
  
Dinner was a quiet affair, at least for Steve. While Peggy and Bucky chatted easily, Steve ate in silence – only agreeing or humming an answer when directly confronted with whatever topic the two were currently engaged in. The food tasted like ash in his mouth, despite it being the meatloaf and mashed potatoes that he liked. His eyes were fixated on Bucky’s left hand – looking just like any other hand. The same soft, tanned, olive skin and well-groomed nails. Even the same criss-crossing of veins that Steve remember from before Bucky’s fall – and yet this was _definitely_ the Bucky he’d left behind in 2023. It just, didn’t make any sense to him.  
  
His eyes followed that hand when Bucky gestured wildly as he spoke, even if Steve didn’t hear the story. His eyes followed as Bucky lifted his cigarette to his lips and took a drag – finally recognizing the scent of the Lucky Strikes – and when he tapped the tip into the ash tray near him on the table.  
  
When both Bucky and Peggy caught him staring, obviously a million miles away, Steve forced a smile. “Sorry… was wool-gatherin’. What was that?”  
  
“I said you wouldn’t mind lending James a pair or two of your pyjamas, while he’s here.” Peggy smiled warmly.  
  
Steve’s eyes flickered to Bucky’s face – the man was wearing that infernal little smirk that Steve remembered clearly. He shook his head easily. “’course not, Buck. You’re more than welcome to anythin’.”  
  
Huffing a slight laugh, Bucky turned his attention immediately back to Peggy, his body still turned in his chair, facing Steve as the Lucky Strike leisurely burned down in his fingers. “Still don’t make no sense to me – feel like I should be loanin’ him my clothes, not the other way ‘roun’.” Laughing, he took another drag from the cigarette and breathed the smoke out through his nose. The small dining room was by now slightly hazy with the smoke, but Steve didn’t care – not when it no longer set his lungs off.

Bucky would never have smoked around him if there was even a small chance of the haze affecting his lungs.

  
“Was that common before the war?” Peggy smiled as she took a mouthful of her wine, her full attention on Bucky.  
  
“Common? Ha!” He quickly shot a glance at Steve, before returning to the man’s wife. “I take it he never told ya the depth of our poverty. Stevie an’ I were so broke that even workin’ two jobs half the time I could barely keep a roof over our heads – we shared clothes ‘cause it made the most amoun’a sense. ‘s’why all of his clothin’ practically hung off’a ‘im – forget his grand stature at the time – ‘cause we bought ‘em large enough ta fit me. Anythin’ in particular that he wanted, I’d take in as best I could.”  
  
Steve groaned. He thought he was passed the days of Bucky humiliating him about their history – thought those days had ended in the 1940s, when he used to tell the Howling Commandos all the same embarrassing stories.  
  
Peggy waved him off easily, keeping her eyes on Bucky. “You sew, James?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am. Cook n’ clean too. Even knit a cardigan for this ‘un,” He nodded his dark head towards Steve, “one Christmas. ‘course if I’d’a known what he was gonna do six years later, I’d’a picked a colour other than _Liberty Blue_.” Bucky chuckled before knocking back the last of the scotch in his glass.  
  
Dessert was a slice of pound cake each – Bucky’s cut half as thick again – and a cup of coffee. Steve and Peggy both started to sing Happy Birthday, but Bucky quickly dismissed them.  
  
The evening passed quietly, with the TV on – mostly news anchors murmuring about the sudden and unexpected electrical storm that had opened up over the greater NYC area. Bucky watched the flickering, little, black and white screen with disinterest, though Steve watched him with silent curiosity.  
  
Horribly, for though it hadn’t occurred to him before, Steve was growing tired by ten thirty, and couldn’t quite stifle his yawning. Embarrassment spread through him, as his eyes flickered to his night owl best friend. But the truth was, since he’d come back to 1950, he’d been following the norm that Peggy and the rest of society set – approximately eight to nine hours a night of sleep, and given that he had to be up at six in the morning to shower, eat, and make it in to James Madison High School before eight, well, it was about time for him to retire.  
  
Mercifully it was Bucky that rose from his seat draped over the (frankly hideous) floral easy chair, with a theatrical yawn and a hand waffling back and forth in front of his mouth. “Sorry ta cut the party short n’ all, but I’m completely beat.”  
  
“I’ll show you to the guest room, James.” Peggy rose from her spot on the couch with a smile and gestured out of the sitting room and to the back hall of the first floor.  
  
“Aces.” Bucky smiled and nodded his head to her as he stepped around and followed her direction out of the room.  
  
The moment he and Peggy both were out of sight, Steve heaved a sigh and sank down in the couch – sliding down until his knees projected far and his head was just barely propped up by the back of the couch. He lifted his hands and buried his face into them as he fought to sift through all the feelings that were bubbling inside of him.  
  
Bucky was back. But he was leaving in two weeks.  
  
Bucky had come back. _To say goodbye_.  
  
Steve missed Bucky stronger than he’d miss a limb. Steve had made the choice to leave Bucky behind in 2023.  
  
Steve had made his choice. He wasn’t entirely sure it was the right one any more.  
  
There was no going back on the choice he’d made.  
  
Steve adored Peggy. Steve _also_ loved Bucky.  
  
Five minutes into his internal self-examination, Peggy walked back out to Steve. She chuckled softly when she saw the way he was sitting, mistaking the posture and general pose for something more innocent than it truly was. “Tired, I see.” She nodded. “Come on, let’s go to bed – morning comes soon, darling.” Leaning in, she pressed a soft-lipped kiss against cheek, before gently rubbing her lipstick off his face with her thumb.  
  
Steve nodded gently and pulled himself up from the couch, which if he was being truthful was less supportive of his back (even free of crooks as it was) than the lumpy old couch that had furnished his and Bucky’s apartment twenty (ninety-three) years earlier. “Bucky get everything he needed for the night?” He tried to be casual.  
  
If Peggy saw something there that Steve was trying to keep hidden, she dismissed it for her husband’s sake and nodded. “Oh, yes. I gave him the pair of pyjamas you seem to hate – the crimson ones. I also gave him a pair of your boxers, if you don’t mind. He didn’t come with much – said he was going to head into town in the morning and more properly equip himself.” Smiling, Peggy lightly bumped her head down against the peak of Steve’s shoulder as they came to the bottom of the stairs.  
  
“That’s good – it’s … good to see him again.” Steve swallowed tightly.  
  
“I understand, Steve. I truly do.” Peggy cupped his jaw gently in her hand and turned his face towards her, before brushing a loving and tender kiss to his lips as her dark eyes slid shut.  
  
Steve closed his eyes and kissed her sweetly back for a moment, before following her up the stairs to their own bedroom.  
  
In the morning, Steve awoke just as exhausted as when he went to bed. He wasn’t even sure that he’d slept – if he had, he’d been dreaming about lying restlessly in bed. Either way it was hardly restorative. He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he trudged into the kitchen, automatically calling out “Buck?” as he yawned again.  
  
“No, just me.” Peggy hummed as he walked into the kitchen.  
  
That was how Steve discovered that he and Peggy were the only ones present – his heart jumped a little as a sense of panic spread through him, until he saw the note by the coffee pot, in Bucky’s always clear and pristine Palmer script.  
  
_Steve & Pegs,  
  
Went to run errands before the morning rush. Will be back this afternoon some time. Will buy groceries while I’m out. I thought I’d make your Ma’s roast beef with roasted cabbage n’ onions on the side; that way you can take a sandwich with you to work tomorrow. Since we both know you don’t eat enough, Steven.  
~James_  
  
Peggy lifted her cup of coffee to her lips at the table, as Steve read the note. “It’s a nice gesture.”  
  
Steve’s stomach growled loudly, without his control, and he flared a little pink.  
  
“And apparently one that makes you hungry.” She teased.  
  
“Yeah…” Steve didn’t like the way the note read – not the note itself, only the signature. Bucky _never_ went by James unless Peggy or Natasha were speaking to him. He wasn’t sure if he’d signed it that way because it was addressed to both himself and Peggy, or because Bucky was still angry with him. Really, it could be either answer. Perhaps Steve was overanalysing it.  
  
It was a long day – despite the fact that Steve loved his job teaching art to high school students, he really just wanted to rush home all day – where he knew Bucky would be. So shoot him, he missed his best friend. No matter if there was a rift between the two of them. But he kept it together and ended the day without any major incidences.  
  
The train ride home was, at best, boring as sin. It took too long, even if it only took him forty-five minutes. When he finally made it into the house, Steve immediately heard the soft sounds of the record player in action; the static pops and crackles permeating the house along with the cheerful notes of Louis Armstrong’s _Potato Head Blues_. He knew the song right away – was thrown almost violently into his memories – he’d met Bucky the year before this song debuted in 1927. It was one of Bucky’s favourites – as well as Winnie Barnes’. They listened to it together often, a fact that never changed when he and Bucky moved in together.  
  
It may not have been Steve’s favourite song by any means, but it was nothing but good memories for him.  
  
Steve couldn’t help but smile as he closed the front door behind himself and set his briefcase down and shrugged off his coat, hanging it off the rack and toeing off his shoes. The smell of the slowly roasting beef wafted from the kitchen, and that mixed with the music was enough to soothe this aching heart. Taking a deep breath, he moved to walk through the kitchen, only to pause and glance down at his discarded shoes. Biting his lip, he picked them up and tucked them neatly alongside Bucky’s set-aside oxfords under the coat rack. Apparently the message that had been constantly drilled through his head years before _did_ finally sink in. 

Walking through into the kitchen, Steve set his briefcase quietly down onto a chair positioned at the kitchen table. Bucky was standing at the stove with his back to Steve, body swaying slightly along with the upbeat nature of _Potato Head Blues_. He was humming softly, under his breath as he lifted the lid off of a pot on the burner and peered inside. He already knew that Steve was behind him. “How was your day?” Bucky glanced over his shoulder as he set the lid back on the pot.

Steve shrugged slightly, the weight of the day settled over him. He’d wanted nothing more than to run home to see Bucky the entire time, and now that he was here, he wasn’t sure what to say. “It was alright… I have a few great students, but most of them take art because they think it’s an easy course.”

“I was one of those at that age.” Bucky shrugged gently. “They’ll figure it out, and if not, well it’s not on you.”

Steve nodded, though Bucky couldn’t see him. The moment passed, and the silence began to grow between them. It was a strange thing, to be so separated from Bucky – to be separated by silence and by an invisible wall such as he had never witnessed before. He didn’t like it.

  
The silence had gone on too long now, and it had grown dense again. Steve did his best to break it, bring some semblance of normality back to their existence. “Peggy should be home soon.” The moment he said he, he knew he’d made a mistake. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried again. “Smells great, Buck.”  
  
“Good.” Bucky nodded but didn’t look back at him as he continually slowly mixed the cooking cabbage and chopped onions. “Should be ready by the time the missus gets here.”  
  
Another beat passed. “Can I… help? At all?”  
  
“Nah, Steve. I’m almost done.”  
  
“I could do the dishes for ya…”  
  
Bucky quirked a dark brow as he set the chopping board into the sink – glancing back over his left shoulder at Steve again. “Considerin’ I’m the one that made the mess, no, ya ain’t.”  
  
“I just… wanted to help…” Steve sighed softly.  
  
“You can help me by not.” Bucky’s tone was clipped, and he turned back to washing the chopping board. Steve fell silent.  
  
“We promised we wouldn’t close each other out…” Steve murmured as he sat at the kitchen table – keeping his eyes on the table top as he ran his thumbnail along a groove in the wood.  
  
“Yeah, well, we promised each other a lot of things, Steve.” Bucky’s voice was quiet as he dried off the cutting board with a towel and put it in the dish rack so that the air could dry the still damp wood.  
  
“Why’d ya come? Why’d ya come if all ya wanted to do was scold me – or freeze me out?” Steve growled softly, and Bucky heaved a sigh – smacking his palm down on the side of the sink.  
  
“You know why I came.” Bucky rounded on him – grey eyes flashing dangerously and for a second Steve could see the traces of _the Soldier _in him, though it was no different to the young man he’d known before the war.  
  
“I’m not sure that I do, _James_.” Steve stood from his place at the table – not trying to intimidate, only trying to get his footing. Intimidation never worked with Bucky – not when he was 95lbs and 5’4”, and certainly not when he was 6’2” and 240lbs. It just never worked, when Bucky was the mark of calm, cool, authority.  
  
“I came back to see that you were happy, Steven. Because God knows you left without warning. God knows you didn’t have the courage to tell me what you were planning. You just went, disappeared, like I was nothing. All it did was prove to me that I wasn’t worth it – and you know what? That’s fair. I was a mess. I was a mess that was recovering and trying to redeem myself. I understand that with Peggy you never have to worry about those things. I understand that with Peggy you’re happy – and that’s all that I came to see.  
  
“I came to make sure you had everything you wanted, and to say goodbye.”  
  
“Then why didn’t you just check in and leave again.” Steve’s throat was getting tight. He didn’t want to fight with Bucky – he hated it, and always had. He missed his friend so much, that all he wanted to do was enjoy the time they had together – even if it was coming to an end again. His jaw as trembling as he was trying to keep himself composed.  
  
Bucky paused, setting his hand on his hip while the other remained on the counter beside him. “If you want me to leave, I will. All you have to do is ask.” The old Brooklyn tone had fled his voice again.  
  
“No, I don’t want ya to go… I just… I want to _understand_, Bucky.” Steve lifted his hands and shrugged with a ‘please help me’ expression.  
  
“Understand _what_, Steve?”  
  
“Why you’re freezing me out like this…” Steve’s voice fell again.  
  
“Because I’m trying to shield what is left of my heart. What you did… I understand it, I understand why you did it… but it was unforgivable, Steven. I deserved to at least _know_ before you left me behind.” Bucky turned away, taking a deep breath and running the back of his right hand over his eyes as he turned the burner temperature down on the range, letting the cabbage and onions fall to a simmer. “Roast’ll take another hour in the oven. I’ll cover the cabbage, it’ll be fine for that time.”  
  
“Where’re you going?” panic spiked in Steve’s breast, and it leaked into his voice, but he pushed it aside.  
  
“Nowhere, I’m just… I can’t do this right now, Steve.” Bucky covered the pan with the matching enamel lid once more and checked that everything was in order, before he slipped out of the kitchen passed Steve.  
  
Peggy was home just under an hour later. By the time she walked in and called out in greeting, Steve was in the kitchen, checking on the roast beef. “Hello Steve!” She spoke cheerfully as she gripped his shoulders. Steve suddenly gasped and dropped the edge of the pan – hissing as he burned himself in surprise. He hadn’t heard her approach, too lost in his own mind.  
  
“Steve!” gasping, Peggy picked up his hand and raised it to her eyes, examining the minor burn. “Come on, come here. Run it under the cold water!” she all but tugged him to the sink and thrust his hand under the stream from the faucet. They both knew he’d be healed in an hour or so, what with the Serum, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to sting in the meantime.  
  
“It’s alright, Pegs. I’m okay.”  
  
“Yes I know, but I’m sorry I startled you.”  
  
Steve shook his head, “Just wasn’t payin’ attention. My own fault.” He turned his head and pressed a kiss against the side of her head gently.  
  
“Did something happen today?” Her brows furrowed as she looked back at him.  
  
Steve chose to omit his argument with Bucky, and instead shook his head. “I just didn’t sleep well last night. Bit foggy, that’s all.” He smiled, knowing it wasn’t fair to keep his dark mood and let it affect Peggy, who was innocent of everything. “How as work today?”  
  
“Oh, you know… cases upon cases. Although something interesting did come through the wire this afternoon.” She hummed, but her eyes were dark and knowing – making a distinct connection with Steve as she looked at him.  
  
“Oh? What was that?” His brows knit together as he watched her.  
  
“We picked up chatter on a Kazahk channel – the frequency was garbled, but we were able to translate a little of the communications. It was between officials at Kengir labour camp, and Moscow. The guards say the prisoners are getting more and more unsettled – they fear an uprising is coming.”  
  
Steve’s brows furrowed tightly, “That’s… definitely-“  
  
“Oh, no that wasn’t the interesting part.” Peggy dipped her chin as she looked at him and started working open the buttons of her dark blue suit jacket.  
  
“No?”  
  
“No. Moscow told the guards of Steplag not to worry – that if the need arises, they’ll send in their weapon… from Siberia.”  
  
The colour drained out of Steve’s face as his stomach dropped to the floor. “You… you don’t mean…”  
  
“I believe they are referring to the Ghost, yes.”  
  
Steve took a deep breath and sat himself at the table with his wife. He groaned as he put his face into his hands. “We could just ask him…”  
  
“Ask me what?” Bucky’s whisky-gravel voice sounded easily from the door of the kitchen – making both Steve and Peggy Rogers jump. He eyed them for a moment, as he stepped into the kitchen properly. “Afternoon, Pegs.” He nodded his head to the woman, before speaking again. “Ask me what?”  
  
Peggy shook her head gently, sending her dark curls bouncing. “Nothing, James. Its fine-“  
  
Bucky immediately turned his attention to Steve, with the cold and calm composure of a soldier. He didn’t ask again, because he didn’t need to. He continued to stare down Steve until Steve finally spoke.  
  
“Steplag… a prisoner uprising is suspected in the next few months… Officials from Moscow said… if they have to, they have a weapon to send in… from Siberia…”  
  
“You’re asking if I was sent to end the Kengir Uprising.” Bucky’s voice was flat. There was no anger, no sadness – just mild exhaustion. These questions never stopped.  
  
“So there is going to be an uprising…” Peggy trailed off slightly.  
  
“From May 16th to June 26th, this year, yes.” Bucky glanced at her before looking back at Steve. “No. I was never sent in to Steplag. It ended violently, but not by my fist. I wasn’t considered stable enough at the time.”  
  
“What do you mean _‘stable enough’_?” Peggy asked, her tone gentle but her eyes hardening.  
  
Steve couldn’t break eye contact with Bucky. He’d read through Bucky’s file, but he also knew that there were pages missing – pages that had been lost either wilfully or accidentally over the years of Bucky’s captivity and his repeated transfers and missions.  
  
Bucky, too, never broke his eye contact with Steve.  
  
“He means they hadn’t fully broken him yet…” Steve’s voice was soft. “It’s been nine years… it’ll be another eleven before they fully trust him to go out on an extended mission without trying to escape.”  
  
Peggy’s breath hitched in her throat. “Oh, _James_.”  
  
Bucky finally turned his attention back to the woman, without blinking to break eye contact with Steve first. He smiled, though there was no warmth in it. “’s’alright, ma’am. Just means they had less time with me doin’ their dirty work, ‘s’all.”  
  
“Is there nothing we can do? I don’t know how exactly, but could we not attempt a prisoner transfer?” Peggy looked between the two men.  
  
“As far as the world knows, ma’am, James Barnes died ten years ago; no government is gonna put themselves on the line tryin’ to rescue a ghost.” Bucky shook his head as he turned and walked to the oven. He opened the door of the stove and pulled out the pan in which the roast beef was sizzling away. He set it on top of the stove with little thought, despite lifting the metal out with his bare left hand. Steve flinched at the sight, even knowing it wasn’t Bucky’s natural hand – it still _looked_ like flesh and blood.  
  
“James, you can’t possibly think we’re not going to try to –“  
  
“Ya didn’t before, ma’am.” His tone left nothing to the imagination. “There’s no point in tryin’ set him free, ‘cause I’m him, and I can tell ya, it ain’t never happened until April of 2014.” Bucky started carving up the roast without looking up.  
  
“James.” Peggy stood up and walked to him. “I know you’re hurting and trying to hide it. And I know you and I didn’t start off on the best foot, and I’m truly sorry about that. But I’m not going to let you remain their prisoner if I can help it.” She squeezed his shoulders and leaned in, pressing her forehead against his temple gently. “I’m not going to stop until either I succeed, or I’ve exhausted literally every possible avenue.”  
  
Bucky sighed and paused in his cutting – leaning his head back against hers gently. “I’m tellin’ ya, it won’t work. I don’t exist. I don’t exist and that makes negotiation impossible. And breakin’ in ain’t gonna help either.”  
  
“Why not?” Peggy pet his hair gently with one hand.  
  
“’cause even if ya get in and get me out, the facility they held me in is in the Verkhoyansk Mountains – the nearest city is Dzhargalakh, 70 kilometers east, through the mountains. Even if you make it there, Dzhargalakh is swarming with HYDRA. Yakutsk is the nearest major city in which you might be able to blend in, but it’s five hundred and fifty kilometers – as the crow flies - and more than three of which is heading south through the Verkhoyansk range. And you’d have to go through the range to avoid HYDRA – trying to slip west and follow the river will nearly double the distance and put you at danger of being captured. Heading east and then arching down will also lead you into HYDRA rich territory. Walking south through the mountains adds two hundred kilometers to the three hundred of mountain range before breaking free of it. That’s seven hundred and fifty kilometers from the base to Yakutsk. That’s 90 straight hours of fast walking, which is impossible over that terrain. It will take nearly two hundred hours of walking – just over 8 days, and that’s only pausing to rest when you’re about to drop dead in mid-step. That is the easiest way out. If you head east and follow the river it will take approximately 6 straight days of walking the same way, with the added threat of HYDRA snapping at your heels. Heading west and arcing down will also take 6 straight days of walking, passing through the mountains twice, with HYDRA waiting to ambush you. I know this, because I have tried all of these escapes, and more.  
  
“It doesn’t matter what you do, or how you try, you won’t be able to escape with me. There is nowhere to go once you get free of HYDRA. There are barely any roads, and no transportation available. No trains, and certainly no airplanes – everything that flies is shot down without hesitation.  
  
“There is no way of rescuing him.” Bucky’s voice was icy. He wasn’t angry, not really, and certainly not with either of them. But he knew the truth – there was no way of escaping – and it was only going to get worse. In the middle sixties he would be moved to another facility, this one in the Koryak mountains, further to the east in Siberia, and from there… there was even less to seek shelter in upon escape. He knew, because he’d tried again from there.

“I’m not going to stop trying, James.” Peggy kissed his temple, and moved away, allowing him to go back to carving the roast. “I’m going to go wash up quickly.”  
  
Steve nodded silently as she stepped around him. Once she was out of the room, he looked at his friend’s back. “I did try…”  
  
“Try what?” Bucky moved the carved meat onto a platter and took a large serving bowl from the cupboard to put the cabbage and onion mixture in.  
  
“To find a way to get you out. I plotted for months with every map I could find… I couldn’t find a way…”  
  
“There wasn’t a way. I just told you that.” Bucky picked up the platter in one hand and the bowl with the other. But, he nodded his head towards the dining room, telling Steve to follow him as he carried the food to the table. Steve pushed himself up and followed him obediently, still lost in thought. Bucky glanced at him and sighed. “Get out of your head, Steve. Its fine, it’s done.” He moved to step around Steve, to go get serving cutlery, but Steve stopped him.  
  
Steve grabbed Bucky’s rolled up sleeve, just below his shoulder, and suddenly pulled – forcefully spinning Bucky back around to face him. Once Bucky was there, Steve threw his arms around him and dragged him in close. He hugged him with a crushing embrace that would have broken the ribs of a smaller and less enhanced man. He didn’t speak, but his brows furrowed together tightly as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight back tears.  
  
He’d cried over Bucky’s HYDRA file many times, but it had been far worse when he realized he really couldn’t do anything to save his friend. It left him feeling vulnerable and useless.  
  
His fingers tightened in the fabric of Bucky’s shirt as he pressed himself up against his friend as firmly as he could.  
  
Bucky sighed softly against Steve’s ear. He hugged Steve back, cupping the back of his friend’s neck with one hand so Steve could keep his face pressed into Bucky’s warm shoulder. He only eased his grip when Steve finally pulled back from Bucky’s shoulder, and untangled his hand from the back of Bucky’s shirt. He wiped at his eyes before the tears could actually fall. “I’m sorry, Bucky. I _really_ tried.”  
  
“I said stop worryin’ about it.” Bucky gripped Steve’s chin gently in his right hand and forced his cerulean blue eyes to meet his own grey ones. “Worryin’ ain’t gonna fix _any_ of it.” He gently put his forehead to Steve’s for just a second, before pulling away and disappearing back into the kitchen.  
  
Peggy watched quietly from the adjoining sitting room, where she’d paused in the doorway the second she saw her husband pull his friend into a hug. She waited until Steve had regained himself and started dishing out the food onto the waiting plates, before she walked into the dining room. “Smells wonderful.” She rubbed his back gently between his shoulders. “Your mother’s recipe?” her red painted smile brightened up the room.  
  
“The roast beef is, but the cabbage n’ onions are Bucky’s Ma’s.”

Dinner passed much in the same way as it had the night before – with Peggy and Bucky chatting together, while Steve remained a little quiet. This time it wasn’t for lack of trying at least, only that the lack of sleep from the night before was starting to catch up with Steve, and although he couldn’t get drunk, the warm burn of the scotch in his glass relaxed him and spread through his limbs like a tepid wave.  
  
He briefly fell asleep while sitting on the couch – jolting awake when Bucky barked out a laugh in response to whatever Peggy was telling him. He gasped as his hand flew to his chest – his heart was beating erratically. “Sorry…” he panted.  
  
And yet by the time Steve was lying in bed that night, sleep escaped him. He spent another night tossing and turning, trying to avoid disrupting Peggy as he focused on letting his mind go blank.  
  
By the next morning, Steve was pretty sure he was looking like a zombie – and if not in looks, then it was obvious in his slowed and tired movements.  
  
When he trudged into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and a few slices of toast before leaving for work, he found Bucky already there. He swallowed tightly. “Mornin’ Buck…”  
  
“Mornin’ Steve. Coffee’s hot.” He nodded his head towards the pot, as he picked up a sheet of waxed butcher’s paper.  
  
“Thanks. Whatch’ya doin’?” Steve poured himself a cup of coffee, slowly so he didn’t splash it and burn himself again.  
  
“Wrappin’ up your lunch; I shredded some of the leftover roast beef and put it onto a buttered bun with mustard and some of the cabbage n’ onions. Breath’ll knock over a horse, but at least ya won’t go hungry.” Bucky hummed quietly under his breath as he folded the thick sandwich up in the paper and tied it with cotton string so it wouldn’t open up unexpectedly. Finished, he turned and held it out for Steve to tuck into his briefcase.

Steve’s stomach started growling the moment he heard what Bucky had made for him, and he gratefully accepted the packet with a happy, if tired, sigh. “I could kiss ya…” the words slipped from him without thinking; Bucky hummed disinterestedly as he started sweeping the breadcrumbs into his palm before discarding them into the sink.

  
Steve hid his faux pas with a mouthful of coffee before he popped open his briefcase and set the sandwich into a pocket where it would be safe until the late morning. Shortly after, Peggy greeted them both. And, within forty minutes both Steve and his wife were on the way out the door, heading to individual jobs – Steve’s further south in Brooklyn, and Peggy’s in Manhattan.  
  
Bucky spent the day first trying to read and finding it impossible. He wasn’t used to down time – not any more. Not the way he’d been used to it in the ‘30s. Even then it wasn’t used to it so much as working himself ragged and frail before finally collapsing and needing his day or two off just to regenerate what he’d lost. But, even since Shuri had brought him out of Cryo after she removed the trigger words from his mind, he’d never been able to fully relax. Despite what his life in Wakanda had looked like, he was farming goats, and he often spent time with the children of the Boarder Tribe. He was always doing _something_.  
  
So that’s what ended up doing, again. He cleaned the house, even though it was hardly needed. Outside, he made sure that the thin layer of ice that had built up since the day before was cleaned off the steps and walk way so that neither of his hosts would slip and injure themselves that evening. He even ended up fixing the dripping faucet in the main bathroom. Still, it didn’t take him all day, and he hoped that what he did accomplish would at least burn off some of his extra energy.  
  
When Steve walked in just after four in the afternoon, he caught Bucky with his head in the oven, as he scrubbed out several years’ worth of soot and build up. He just paused for a second, listening to Bucky swearing under his breath, the words echoing slightly inside the steel cavern. He smartly waited until Bucky withdrew from the stove and sat upright on his knees, before greeting him.  
  
“Oh, hi Steve.” Bucky glanced at him, a little sheepish. His hair was a fluffy mess of curls and his face was smeared with soot and charcoal. His right hand was black from holding on the steel wool he’d been using to scour the inside of the oven cavity, and his left was slightly grey from the soot dust kicked up. Even his shirt was a little damaged, from the battle with the oven. Marked black.  
  
“You didn’t have to clean the oven – or scrape the walkway. I was gonna see to the ice when I got home, but… you got to it first.”  
  
“Well, see, pal, the thing is I know I didn’t hafta, but I wanted ta… I was bored; couldn’t settle. Figured I might as well do somethin’”  
  
“Buck, you’re a guest… you should be … I dunno relaxing or… or … well I dunno or what, but either way you don’t need to do all this – cookin’ and cleanin’. It’s not like it’s still 1936 and I need all the help I can get…”  
  
Bucky returned his gaze, completely unimpressed. “I _know _ya don’t need me, but I still wanted to do it… If you don’t like it, then bugger off.”  
  
Steve’s blue eyes widened in surprise with the way Bucky spoke to him. “I… I was trying to be nice!” he hissed  
  
“If you wanna be nice, stop tellin’ me you don’t need me! I already know that, Steve!”  
  
“I didn’t say I don’t need you, I said you don’t need to take care of me like this!”  
  
“It’s the _same_ thing!”  
  
“How is it the same thing?!”  
  
“Because you _don’t_ need me. You don’t need me to take care of you in _any_ way, and that’s all I was good for! You haven’t needed me lookin’ out for you for years, and you’ve got Peggy now. I get it, you don’t need me lookin’ after you, but Jesus can you not remind me for five minutes?!”  
  
“What?” Steve blinked in a daze. “_Of course_ I still need you! You’re my best friend! Just because I don’t need you mother hennin’ me doesn’t mean I don’t_ need_ you.”  
  
Bucky pursed his lips together, tightening his jaw as he turned his eyes away from Steve. Steve knew that motion intimately – it was the sign that Bucky was temporarily shut down so that he didn’t say something he would regret. It meant that Bucky’s throat had tightened up and anything that came out of him would be strangled with emotion _and_ ruled by it.  
  
Steve’s shoulders sagged as he looked back at the older man. “What are we doin’, Buck?”  
  
“I don’t know, Steve… this wasn’t how this visit was supposed to go… not at all.” Bucky still hadn’t turned to look at him.  
  
“Did you come to convince me to go back with you?” Steve hesitated in asking – not sure that he wanted to know the answer. Bucky merely shook his head no, one resolute time. “… Why not?” Steve swallowed around the lump forming in this throat.  
  
“Because I’m not going to take you away from what you’ve built here. I am not that cruel. I just… I just wanted to see you one last time. When I go, I promise I won’t bother you again.”  
  
Steve’s heart jumped, and he crossed the distance between them in a flash. “Do you really have to go?”  
  
“Yeah, you know I do. It ain’t my place to be here. Besides, I don’t know how long I can take it, knowin’ my Ma’s so close by but I can’t see her. Or my Da – and god forbid Becca happen to see me while she’s out with her husband. Besides I have a limited window during which I can return. Even two weeks is pushin’ it.”  
  
“Then… Then can we stop fighting? Please? I love you and I don’t wanna spend these last days hurting like this…” Steve looked down at the floor, unable to meet Bucky’s eyes.  
  
“Yeah… Alright, Stevie. I’ll try.”  
  
“What can I do?” Steve’s hand fell to Bucky’s hip gently, just focusing on the feeling of the dense suiting wool under his fingers as he slowly looked up into his friend’s face with his brows knit.  
  
Bucky shook his head and lifted his hand, cupping Steve’s face gently. “We’ll talk when there’s more time, Steve.” He brushed his thumb against Steve’s cheek, as Steve rubbed his thumb against Bucky’s hip in the same soothing manner.  
  
Dinner that night went far more pleasantly – Steve allowed himself to be pulled into the conversations with Bucky and Peggy. He even let Peggy drag him from the armchair he was sitting in until he was on couch between his spouse and best friend – laughing along even as the two brunets shared embarrassing stories about him.  
  
By the time they were all retiring for the night, Steve felt better – that the worst of the weight had been eased off of them. It wasn’t a complete fix, and he knew it, but at least he could be in Bucky’s vicinity without them fighting every five minutes. He really just wanted his friend back, for as long as he had left.  
  
Steve was glad that it was the end of the week; he was exhausted after the last two nights of poor sleep. It was longer than two nights if he was completely honest, sleep seemed to escape him here and there for the majority of his immediate memory. Peggy still had half a day of work left to complete in the morning – she’d likely be leaving the house around seven in the morning as usual, but she would be back around one o’clock. Steve planned on using that time to both nap and have the conversation he needed to have with Bucky – even if he wasn’t completely ready to have it. After all, he did have a lot of things to explain…  
  
Peggy was asleep before eleven thirty, Steve however continued to lay on his back off to her right, staring up at the ceiling as he ran through everything that he needed to tell Bucky. He was being given the chance he’d wanted since he’d landed in 1950. He couldn’t waste it.  
  
But the thing was, the more he thought about it, the more it all boiled down to one truth: he missed Bucky. He didn’t care what he’d done in the past – only that it had hurt his friend – he just missed him. Missed him like a piece of his own soul. He’d _been _missing him since ‘42.  
  
Turning his head on the pillow, Steve glanced over at Peggy; she was curled up slightly with her back to him; her dark hair spilled over her pillow. She was breathing soft and shallowly – he knew she was fast asleep. He just wanted to be able to sleep like that too, but it seemed to escape him.  
  
Eventually, with a quiet sigh, Steve pushed the bedding off of himself and swung his legs out of bed. He rubbed his face with his hand as he rose, quickly turning to tuck Peggy back into the warm nest of bedding. He had no real goal, only knowing that he couldn’t take another night lying restlessly in bed. He’d rather sleep on the couch if he needed to. Moving on the balls of his feet, Steve crept out of the master bedroom, and closed the door silently behind himself. He paused on the landing, before taking a deep breath and creeping down the stairs.  
  
He had every intention of just going into the sitting room and sitting on the couch to read for an hour or two, but his feet had other plans. Without meaning to, Steve found himself in the back hallway of the house’s lower level, walking to the guest room where Bucky was sleeping during his short stay. Steve paused, right outside the door, and chewed on his lip. He could see that there was still a lamp on in the room, from the sliver of amber-hued light shimmering under the door, but this wasn’t quite proper. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on what he needed to do. He’d sleep better if he could get it off his chest, he knew he would – and maybe, so too, would Bucky.  
  
So Steve swallowed tightly around the nervous lump of his heart in his throat, and tapped on the door with his knuckle, only turning the knob when he heard the permissive hum from inside. His throat was still tight as he stepped in, but his eyes instantly fell over the form of Bucky in the bed.  
  
Bucky was lying on his back like a soldier with his eyes closed, much the same way that Steve had been trying to sleep upstairs. The crimson cotton pyjama blouse was still lying, delicately folded, on top of the dresser in the corner of the room, leaving Bucky bare-chested with just the top of the cotton pants riding low on his hips visible from under the sheets. Steve’s breath caught in his throat – the expanse of black and gold detailed Vibranium that was Bucky’s left arm was completely on display – and it caught him off guard. His eyes raked over it, and though he’d known that the flesh arm he’d seen Bucky with for the last three days wasn’t the truth of his anatomy, it was still a mildly jarring transition. If only because he’d grown used to it again. He couldn’t help but trail his eyes up and down the Vibranium, tracing his gaze reverently over the area of gnarled scar tissue on Bucky’s left breast and shoulder.  
  
Steve’s breath hitched slightly in his throat.  
  
One of Bucky’s well-groomed dark brows quirked up, but his eyes did not slide open. He could feel Steve studying him. “What do you want, Steve?”  
  
Steve blinked, forcing himself out of his reverie, and quickly (though quietly) closed the door behind himself. “How… how did you know it was m-“  
  
Bucky couldn’t help the amused little snort that escaped from him as he turned his head to Steve and opened his silver eyes, brow still quirked. “’cause _Peggy_ don’t like me enough to come in here. Why aren’t ya sleepin’ upstairs?” With his hands on the mattress, Bucky pushed himself up into a sitting position.  
  
Steve, standing in the middle of the floor, suddenly found himself unable to answer Bucky. Not because he didn’t know what to say, or do, but because he didn’t quite know where to start. Eventually, after a momentary silence, he sighed irritably. “Can I just…” he waved his hand towards the bed.  
  
Bucky’s other brow rose, but he shrugged his shoulders a little as he shifted over in the double-sized bed. Wordlessly, he lifted the covers and held them up for Steve.  
  
It was like something snapped in Steve. He was immediately crawling into the nest of blankets made warm by Bucky’s body heat. And then another old habit kicked in, making him act before he had time to process what he was even thinking. Ducking his head slightly and shifting just a little down the mattress, Steve made himself as small as he could with his serum enhanced physique and tucked himself in against Bucky’s right side. He laid his head on the warm plane between Bucky’s shoulder and pectoral. His eyes slid closed the moment he was positioned there – letting Bucky’s body support his weight.  
  
Bucky tensed slightly at first, but the tension eased out of his shoulders as he focused his gaze down on his friend’s relaxed face. His whisky-warm voice broke the innocence after a moment. “What, can’t sleep?”  
  
Steve shook his head, as he focused on listening to the soft sounds of Bucky’s breathing under his ear, and the quiet but steady beat of the man’s heart echoing from the other side of his broad chest. “Never can…” he found himself answering truthfully, enjoying the feeling of the supple skin under his cheek.  
  
“What, 1950s too quiet for ya after the 21st century?” There was a slight bitter edge to the humor in Bucky’s voice.  
  
“No, that’s not it…” Steve paused for a moment, really wondering if this was a confession that was fair to put on Bucky’s shoulders. But, the man deserved to know. “Never _was_ good at sleepin’ alone…”  
  
Bucky huffed and shook his head. “Don’t be dramatic. Ya ain’t alone, ya got Pegs.”  
  
Steve sighed, yeah, he was really going to have to say this. He worried his lip for a moment, eyes slowly opening until he was gazing almost sightlessly down at Bucky’s dusky left nipple. “That’s not what I meant… I… I forgot how much I relied on ya. I’ve never been good at sleepin’ alone, ‘cause you were there since we were kids… If it’s not _you_, it’s like sleepin’ alone.” He swallowed tightly, and above him, Bucky sighed softly.  
  
“Steve… don’t –“  
  
Steve shook his head. “Let me finish, please. Please, Bucky. I forgot how much I relied on you… I … I guess I got used to ya being gone, and while I wasn’t happy with it, I guess I made my peace with it. So I made up my mind, and I guess… I guess … I guess I figured there was nothin’ left, so I… I left before I really got you back. I’m sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the sight of his friend’s chest and the metal arm.  
  
Bucky was silent. He stayed silent long enough that Steve half wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but the depth and rhythm of his breathing told Steve that the other man was still very much awake. “What you did to me – to _us_ … I’m not sure that I can _ever_ forgive that, Stevie. I’m not sure I can forgive you leaving me behind like that – like I meant nothing to you.”  
  
Steve squeezed his eyes shut harder. His head was still resting on Bucky’s shoulder, and no matter how much he wanted to put his arms around his friend, he didn’t dare to. He breathed deep, to keep a handle on his emotions – knowing that he didn’t deserve to be hurt by Bucky’s words, not after what he’d done.  
  
Not after what he’d done, considering the actual depth of his betrayal.  
  
Bucky swallowed, and Steve heard the tightness in his throat. He inhaled a deep breath, trying to keep himself composed in the same way that Steve was. “But I understand why you did it… So, if you really do mean that you’re sorry for doing that to us, then… while I might never forgive it… I _am _willing to move on from it.”  
  
Steve hiccupped, and the miserable, terrified, sixteen-year-old in him surged forth. Without warning, but for a desperate little whine in the back of his throat, his arms shot out and he wrapped them tightly around Bucky, clinging to him the way he had the day that Sarah Rogers had passed from this world and into the next. He scrunched, making himself further smaller again, as he tucked himself under Bucky’s chin as the sob finally ripped from his throat.  
  
Bucky slowly released the exhale he’d been holding since Steve had vanished after returning the Infinity Stones to their proper timelines. He released it slowly and shifted his position ever so slightly on the bed and wrapped his arms around the man currently burying his face into his bare chest. Closing his eyes slowly, he tilted his head and rest his cheek on the top of Steve’s golden head.

His metal hand shifted and lightly cupped the back of Steve’s head – the cool metal was soothing against his hair. Steve answered by putting his hand between Bucky’s pectorals, thumb absently brushing over the patch of soft dark hair littering his friend’s chest in the centre of his breast as his breathing eased sluggishly.  
  
“When was the last time ya slept properly?” Bucky spoke quietly – his voice not much more than a breath of a murmur.  
  
Steve shook his head, “We bein’ honest here?”  
  
“No, I want ya ta lie ta me.” Bucky’s deadpanned sarcasm made Steve snort slightly.  
  
He didn’t move out from under Bucky’s chin, keeping himself pressed into his friend’s neck and chest. “1941… before Pearl Harbor.”  
  
“_Steven_.” Bucky sighed softly and brushed a kiss against Steve’s crown. “I meant after that…”  
  
Steve paused, considering it for a moment. “November’a 2017, when I visited you in Wakanda… even if the goats bleetin’ at 5 am did wake me up.”  
  
“Steve that was six – wait… no that was ten years ago for you…”  
  
“Yeah… wait, why did you say six first? Wait didn’t you come from 2027?” Steve eased himself back and sat up enough to look down at Bucky as the man rested back against the headboard.  
  
Bucky shook his head. “Never said that…”  
  
“But I’ve been here for four years…”  
  
“Yeah, ya have.”  
  
“How … how long have I been gone for you?”  
  
Bucky kept his gaze locked with Steve’s. “Four weeks.”  
  
His heart leaped and thudded in his breast. No wonder it was still such a fresh and painful wound for Bucky – he’d _just_ left him. “Bucky I-“  
  
“Look, I _did_ originally plan on draggin’ ya back with me… but you’re, for the most part, happy here, ain’t ya?”  
  
Steve fell silent. _Was_ he happy here? Or was he trapped now in his snap decision born of grief and nostalgia?  
  
“So if you’re happy, we don’t need to have that conversation. But, I have ta tell ya, Stevie – those black circles under your eyes get any darker, and I’m gonna think ya raided my mission kit.” He tried to tease. “Come on…” Bucky reached with is left hand and clicked off the lamp on the nightstand between the left side of the bed and the wall. He scooched slightly down the bed, until he was lying with his head on the pillow and gazing up at Steve. Even in the darkness, his grey eyes were warm. “Lie down and let’s get some sleep.”  
  
Steve glanced between the pillow on his side of the bed – the one that Bucky had been lying on when he walked in – and Bucky himself. He made the decision quickly and scrunched himself down the bed until he could settle his head on his friend’s shoulder again. Closing his eyes with a deep exhale, he wrapped his arm around Bucky’s naked waist, and felt Bucky shift, turning partially onto his right hip – enough to face Steve and pull him into the warmth of his embrace.  
  
Steve fell asleep soon after, lulled by the familiar warmth of Bucky Barnes against him. He settled, sleeping truly peacefully for the first time in ten years.  
  
The morning came too early. It was still dark – just barely into the wolflight- when Steve started to stir to wakefulness. Bucky was already awake, and gently nuzzling Steve to slowly bring him to consciousness.  
  
“Nnn…” Steve groaned quietly, trying to stay asleep, though he made no attempt to block Bucky from nuzzling him. “Buck…”  
  
“Wake up, Stevie…” his voice was soft, near Steve’s ear.  
  
“Don’t wanna.” Steve squeezed his eyes a little tighter, burying himself further into Bucky’s neck. Above him his friend chuckled. “Don’t laugh, Jerk.”  
  
Bucky’s cool metal hand lifted and pushed the hair back from Steve’s forehead. “Ya hafta. ‘s’five thirty. Peggy’ll be up within the hour; ya gotta get back to your own bed, pal.”  
  
Steve sighed deeply, and just wanted to stay here in the warm bed, sharing with Bucky. He’d slept well, even felt rested, but he didn’t want to move yet. Not when he still could sleep for another three years straight, it felt. “Can’t I just stay here?”  
  
Bucky chuckled softly, not realizing just how loaded that question was. “Nah, come on, punk. Get your fat butt outta my bed and get back to your wife before she wonders where ya went off ta.”  
  
Sighing, Steve nodded and pushed himself up slowly. His hair was dishevelled, and his periwinkle coloured pyjama top was wrinkled and askew. He sat up, staring into the middle distance for a moment. It was still too early.  
  
Bucky pushed himself up as well and looked Steve over. Without thinking, he licked his flesh palm, and immediately ran his hand back through Steve’s blond hair, taming it if not controlling it. Steve blushed a warm pink colour. “There, now ya look a little more…. Nah your pyjamas are still completely wrinkled.” A beat passed. “Sleep okay?”  
  
“Better than I have in years, Buck.” Steve smiled sadly and knocked his head against his friend’s.  
  
“Still tired?”  
  
“Like death warmed over, yeah.”  
  
Bucky stayed silent for a moment, as he chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. “Alright, here’s the plan.” Steve perked up, hearing the resolute tone in Bucky’s voice. “You’re gonna sneak upstairs and into the bathroom. You’re gonna flush the toilet so if Peggy’s even partly awake, she knows where ya are – that way you can walk confidently back into the bedroom whether she’s awake or not. Then, you’re gonna get into bed with her, and be there when she wakes up. You’ll get up with her, and once she’s gone for the morning, if you’re still that tired, ya can come back in here. If ya wanna nap the mornin’ away, I’ll stay in bed with ya.”  
  
A loving smile spread across Steve’s face as he listened to Bucky talking. “Really?”  
  
“Yeah, ‘course punk.”  
  
“What do you boys have planned for today?” Peggy asked with a smile before taking a mouthful of her morning coffee an hour and a half later.  
  
Steve shrugged slightly as he rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “Dunno what Bucky’s got planned, but I’m considerin’ goin’ back to bed for a bit. Haven’t been sleepin’ well.” He yawned for show, but he didn’t enjoy lying to Peggy. But it wasn’t exactly like he could tell her that he was planning on getting back into bed with Bucky.  
  
“Mmm,” Peggy hummed into her mug, before setting it down on the table. “Then go back to bed, Steve. You’re more than allowed – and you don’t need to explain it to me”  
  
Steve nodded quietly, “Habit I suppose.”  
  
“Did you used to always tell Bucky what you were doing?” she quirked a brow curiously.  
  
She had no idea how that cut him.  
  
Steve shook his head. “If I did, he’d have never let me out of our apartment.” He half-laughed. “But it didn’t matter, Bucky always knew me better than me… had some kinda sixth sense when it came to me gettin’ in trouble.” In the background he heard the pipes thump to life as the shower turned on in the downstairs bathroom.  
  
Peggy paused for a moment, before nodding as she set her mug onto the table. “He’s a good friend…”  
  
Steve nodded, barely listening as his mind drifted a little. “The best…”  
  
Peggy watched her husband for a moment, watching the way his attention drifted. “And he’s not married?”  
  
Steve froze for just a second, and shook his head, “Uh, no… at least not when I last knew him.”  
  
“Shame… good man like that… one in a million, Steve. A husband like him… loyal to a fault.” She took the last mouthful of her coffee.  
  
Steve squeezed his eyes shut for just a second, while Peggy wasn’t looking at him.  
  
“Still, I suppose setting him up with someone wouldn’t be fair – since we know he has no intention of staying here…” she ran her red painted nail along the rim of the mug.  
  
“No, I suppose not.”  
  
Peggy perked up slightly as she glanced at the clock above the table. “Oh! I need to be off,” she rose from her chair and set her now empty mug by the sink. “But I’ll see you later, darling.” Squeezing his shoulder gently, she leaned down and pressed a tender kiss against his cheek. Within a few moments, she had gathered her coat and her belongings, sweeping out of the house like a force of nature.  
  
Steve sagged in his seat slightly, dropping his eyes to the table top.  
  
When the shower turned off in the background, he was still staring at the table top. Another few minutes passed, before Bucky peeked into the kitchen, leaning passed the doorway. “You stayin’ up now, or ya still wanna come back ta bed?” His dark brows were elevated with curiosity.  
  
Steve shook his head as he rose from his seat. “I’m comin’ back ta bed…” He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he rose from the table.  
  
“Okay.” Bucky’s voice was gentle – completely oblivious to the conversation Steve had been in while he was in the shower. He started back down the hall to his room, with Steve trailing behind him like a lost soul. Pushing the door of the spare room open again, Bucky walked inside and lifted a hand, ruffling out his damp hair. Steve closed the door quietly behind himself and headed for the bed.  
  
A moment later, Bucky came around the far side of the bed, and lifted the sheets – slotting himself back into the bedding, lifting his right arm so that Steve could tuck himself in close again. They settled together, snuggled up in their pyjamas, with their arms wrapped around each other. Bucky settled back into the soft pillows, as Steve nuzzled his shoulder silently. After a moment, Steve exhaled softly as he started to relax. He drew in a deep breath through his nose again.  
  
“You okay?” Bucky rolled his head on the pillow and looked down at Steve.  
  
“Yeah…” Steve focused on the scent of the soap on Bucky’s skin, rather than thinking about what Peggy had said early.  
  
“You sure?” Bucky lifted his right hand – as Steve was already tucked under that arm – and scrunched affectionately at Steve’s blond hair.  
  
Nodding, Steve snuggled closer – burying his face into Bucky’s neck. “Jus’ never thought I’d miss the smell’a Sunlight soap and Halo shampoo.” Bucky hummed in a non-committal way as a response. “Ya just smell good ‘s’all.” Steve pulled back a little, resting his cheek on Bucky’s shoulder without keeping his face tucked in against the other man’s neck.  
  
Bucky kept massaging Steve’s scalp with the tips of his fingers. “Ya seemed a little upset when I saw ya in the kitchen.”  
  
Steve just shook his head. “Pegs asked me if you were married… I said no, and she said that was a shame.”  
  
“Oh.” Bucky sighed – his hand pausing in Steve’s hair for a moment, before he went back to the gentle scritching. “Well…”  
  
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’a said anythin’.”  
  
“No, ya shouldn’ have… but it’s done and it’s the truth: I ain’t married.”  


Steve squeezed his eyes shut. Even if it was the truth, or a version of it at least, it stung. He stayed quiet, and focused on letting the tension ease from his shoulders.

  
Snuggled back up together, Steve fell asleep soon after, and stayed asleep until half an hour before noon. He only awoke when the warm pillow of Bucky’s shoulder shifted under his cheek. Bucky was already awake – his right arm loosely draped around Steve’s shoulders and holding him lightly against his side, while his left hand – still looking like bare black and gold Vibranium – was holding a battered old book open as he read. The subtle smell of tobacco and cigarette smoke filled the room, and when Steve raised his eyes, he saw the smoldering Lucky Strike held between Bucky’s lips as his focus remained on the book.  
  
Steve’s mouth was dry and pasty, but he slowly stuck out his tongue and wet his lips as he fully woke up. “How long ya been up?” Lifting his hand, he rubbed his eyes ineffectually – still lying on Bucky’s chest.  
  
Bucky breathed out a hum with a slight puff of cigarette smoke through his nostrils. “’bout three hours, give’r’take.” He murmured around the Lucky Strike in his lips as he turned the page with his thumb. “Sleep well?”  
  
“Mhmm… whatch’ya readin’?” Steve yawned, and covered it lazily with one hand as he reoriented his head on Bucky’s breast to glance at the book.  
  
“War of the Worlds.” Bucky didn’t look up from the book, but his thumb lightly brushed over the peak of Steve’s right shoulder through the cotton flannel of his pyjamas.  
  
“Mm… again?” There was no heat in Steve’s voice.  
  
“Yeah.” Bucky’s pink tongue darted out and rolled the cigarette from the right side of his mouth to the left, so the burning cherry was as far from Steve as possible. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the other man’s crown.  
  
“Pick it up the other day?”

“Mhmm.”

“’s’awfully beat lookin’. You pick it up from a thrift shop? Looks like your old copy.”

“It _is _the old one. But yeah, thrift shop.” Bucky slipped his metal thumb back between the front cover and the folio of pages he’d already read and flipped back to the beginning. There, in faded ink, on the flyleaf was his own writing. Property of James B. Barnes, Christmas 1929.

“I promise, I_ never _put it there…” Steve’s guilt was evident.

“Nah Stevie, that never occurred to me. I know my Ma and Da, even Becca, likely raided our apartment after we were both considered KIA. No one’s at fault – ‘s’been years.” Bucky set the book, open, face down on his thigh through the blankets. Reaching up, he drew the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out in the ashtray on the little nightstand off to his left. “Can’t expect them to keep everythin’… hell, it’d be too hard.” As Steve snuggled closer to him, keeping his arms around Bucky’s naked waist, he breathed slow and steady. “Want me ta read t’ya like the old days?”

Steve couldn’t help the small smile that tugged across his face. “Sure, Buck, if ya don’t mind.”

“Never have.” Bucky rest his jaw lightly against Steve’s crown as he picked the book and turned back to the beginning. Soon his whisky-warm voice filled Steve’s senses as he began to read. “No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinized the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water…”

By the time that Peggy came home in the early afternoon, the two men had migrated to the sitting room. They were together on the couch – Bucky’s body stretched out as his socked feet were propped up on the coffee table with his ankles crossed, and Steve sitting slumped beside him – still awake – with his head on Bucky’s right shoulder and Bucky’s right arm draped again around his shoulders.

Bucky’s metal arm was one again disguised as perfectly flesh and bone – he’d take the time to explain to Steve that all the metal arms he’d worn over the years had camouflage abilities, just that he rarely used them. The newest one, curtesy of King T’Challa and Princess Shuri, was the one with the simplest and most efficient settings. The interface tapped into Bucky’s memories, and extrapolated the image of his own left arm – a shield of sensors in the gold seams of the plates then projected the image straight to the visual cortex of not only Bucky himself but anyone looking at him – so long as he wished for the camouflage units to be engaged. This image extended to the feeling of the arm as well – the sensors projected a soft warmth that matched the man’s natural body temperature. It even protected the twin of his pulse from his right arm.

Bucky was still reading as Steve listened to him. “And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate body, I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife. For the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so, unhappily, I could for the latter. And suddenly that night became terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark.”

“Well isn’t this a darling picture!” Peggy greeted them, with a bright smile on her red painted lips, having just stepped into the sitting room.

Gasping, Steve scrambled to sit up, pushing Bucky off himself. Bucky rolled his eyes, closing the book. Of course the moment between them was completely shattered – and not even by Peggy, but Steve himself. He hummed with displeasure as he leaned forward and put the book onto the table top.

Peggy quirked a brow, “Don’t let me interrupt – I enjoy seeing the two of you reconciled. Now, because I’ve had a terrible morning of paperwork, I’m going to put on a pot of tea.”

“I’ll give you a hand-“ Steve started to get up from the couch, right as Bucky folded his arms over his chest.

Peggy eyed them darkly. “Steven, I am more than capable of fetching tea for myself. You’re also being very rude right now. Sit back down and stay with James.”

Bucky snorted in an attempt to hide his laughter as he glanced away.

Steve’s jaw dropped open slightly as his wife admonished him.

That night, Steve found himself knocking on Bucky’s bedroom door again, after Peggy had fallen asleep. In fact it became somewhat of a habit over the next week; sneaking out of bed in order to curl up with Bucky like they always had before the war.

As the days passed, Steve found it easier to progress through his days teaching. He was becoming happier and happier to go home at the end of the day – looking forward to Bucky greeting him at the door, and the couple of hours where it was just the two of them existing side by side before Peggy came home from Manhattan.

The truth, which he could never admit, was that he was the happiest he’d been in years. He was falling in love all over again, but it was wrong. He knew it was wrong – it would be wrong to do that to both Peggy and Bucky. So he kept it quiet – held it close to his heart and didn’t let on.

He couldn’t break two hearts – least of all the very ones that he’d already broken before. It was kinder to break his own heart rather than those of Peggy and Bucky. And, with the days passing by, Bucky’s two week visit was coming to a conclusion. Steve would lose him, again, but that was the choice he’d already made. When it ended, and Bucky had gone back to 2023, there would be no changing it.

It was Saturday, March the 20th, 1954. Peggy had left that morning on a last minute tip – she would be in London for at least three days. Howard Stark was accompanying her, so Steve trusted that she would be safe. He’d offered to go with her, she’d told him no. He’d offered to send her with the shield, again she had said no. She did, however, accept the SIG Sauer P226 that Bucky had brought back with him and laid into her hand. She accepted it for the simple sake that she knew, unlike Steve, Bucky would not let her leave without further armament. Bucky couldn’t have cared less that it was anachronistic for 1954 London. He’d removed the sensor that made it only accept his own palm print (flesh or metal) without exploding and told her that she was welcomed to keep it if her return did not align with his departure the following Wednesday. She’d thanked him with a hug and a kiss to the cheek, before she was off.

Bucky was leaving on Wednesday – the 24th.

Their time was coming to a close.

Steve wasn’t ready. All of the other separations from Bucky had been so sudden that beyond the grief after the fact, there was only so much he could worry about things. This time… this was so much worse. This time was pre-planned, and all were knowledgeable about the fact.

“Ya know… it was one thing when I didn’t know what I was missin’ ‘cause we ain’t had no choice… but food in this country before the 90s is really fuckin’ bland.” Bucky was staring into the refrigerator, focusing on lack of anything remotely appetizing. There was food, to be sure, but nothing that he particularly wanted. Not that there wasn’t plenty of food in the house – Bucky had gone to the grocery for Peggy and Steve at least twice in the last several days alone.

Steve snorted from his place at the kitchen table. “I gotta tell ya, ya ain’t wrong.”

“When I have ever been wrong, pal?” Bucky teased.

Steve rolled his eyes before immediately smiling as Bucky closed the refrigerator door. “It’s not so bad, ya get used ta it again.”

“Yeah, well, forgive me for this, but I’m not likin’ it. So I gotta plan, see?” Bucky waltzed over to the table and dropped himself into the chair across from Steve, one arm draped over the back of his seat.

“Oh? Just gonna ring up for Chinese?” Steve snorted.

“Ring up, wow. Ya have been around Pegs too long – but no. Not Chinese. If you’re still the same way ya were before Thanos… and the way Sam’s been tellin’ me ya were in that five years… I bet you’re dying for a good curry.” Bucky smirked a little.

Steve groaned at the same time that his stomach growled, “God, don’t even tease me with that.”

“I ain’t teasin’. Look, curry’s easy enough. We got the chicken, rice, onions, hell I even bought a few mangoes for some reason. We got most of the spices, but what we don’t got… we can get. Come on, get up. Let’s go on an adventure.”

“Buck, where the hell are ya gonna find curry powder –“

“Kid,” Bucky intoned. “We’re in Brooklyn. Ya know there’s a fair immigrant population – and yeah, it ain’t as diverse as it will be, but I know we can get whatever we want. And if not, well, I’ll substitute and make something kinda weird but almost right. Come on, punk. Let’s go.”

Steve laughed as Bucky dragged him out of the house – barely having time to lock up – as they made their way to the nearest train. They took the first one going back to Red Hook – their old neighbourhood. It was always a little more excepting of all peoples than other places had been – to be honest, neither Steve nor Bucky would have been the men they became if they hadn’t grown up on those streets – hadn’t met all the peoples that they have had. Mr. Vaccarelli’s grocery was still standing, down the street from where their old apartment was in the ‘30s and ‘40s – where Steve had worked a few summers during the late ‘30s, while Bucky worked at the docks.

Mr. Vaccarelli’s grocery was the perfect place to look, as he’d always carried a few of the stranger spices. He’d liked to cater to the local population, so while it was perhaps strange for other locales, the small store was tailored to all kinds of “ethnic” cooking – carrying spices for Italian, Greek, even African cooking. This much they knew, so it wasn’t out of the question that the store may also carry Eastern spices, like curry powder.

However, in their mutual excitement to go on such a domestic and basic adventure, neither Steve nor Bucky saw the obvious flaw to being back in Red Hook.

Vaccarelli’s Grocery really hadn’t changed much since the ‘40s – granted the last time that Bucky was in the store was really only eleven years ago (if one didn’t count the fact that it was actually eighty years since he was only visiting from 2023) – it was still quaint and charming, with shelves that were once taller than Steve – though now only came up to be level with their noses. Bushels of drier goods – though perhaps that was a misnomer as some of the objects in question were actually large cooking potatoes – hung from the ceiling of the store in baskets and nets – easily accessible but allowing the shelves to hold only the most important thing.

The problem was that Vaccarelli’s Grocery really hadn’t changed much since the ‘40s. Bucky and Steve could still wander without thought and navigate. They talked to each other as they each carried small baskets to hold their haul. They split up long enough to take to different aisles, though due to the small nature of the store, they were unable to avoid anyone else that might be shopping for tonight’s dinner.

They encountered them individually, in two different aisles. Bucky in baking supplies, and Steve in the produce section.

Steve turned, to call out a question about any other fruit or vegetables that Bucky might want – only to come face to face with a ghost. With a nightmare.

With Winnie Barnes.

His mouth ran dry as his friend’s name died on his tongue.

Bucky, on the other hand, rounded a corner as he contemplated picking up baking chocolate for the sake of making proper hot cocoa that night, only to encounter his little sister. His very much grown up little sister. His very pregnant little sister.

Winnie Barnes had not changed since they were children. Her red-toned chestnut hair was still just as wild, dancing in feral curls as she left it free from all styling but being held back from her face with a silk scarf. It was lighter now – a touch closer to fiery red than it was the rich chestnut – if only for the strands of frost that now wove through it. She had aged since the last time that Steve had seen her – the last family dinner with the Barneses, the Sunday before Bucky was deployed, but at fifty-six she was still amazingly vibrant and svelte. 

Gasping at the sight of Steven Rogers standing before her, Winnie Barnes dropped the basket she was carrying – Steve distinctly heard the sound of the eggs smashing and automatically winced.

“Steve? _Steve_?!” Her feline green eyes widened as she looked him up and down. While he might have been bigger than when she had last seen him in person, she had always watched the weekly news reels of Captain America and his Howling Commandos – she recognized him in and instant, and there was no escaping it.

Steve smiled awkwardly, completely full of guilt. “Hi… Mama Winnie…”

Her face snapped from an emotional, surprised, smile, to sudden irritation. Without warning, Winnie lifted her hand and slapped him as hard as she could manage – turning his head to the side with the force of it.

Steve’s hand flew to his face, but he rubbed at his cheek with ease. It was red, and it would be for a few moments yet, but it would heal without trouble and be gone within the hour – as if it had never happened. He almost regretted that – Winnie had had every right to slap him like that. And, with Bucky in the store as well, it was only a matter of time…

“I completely deserved that…” Steve couldn’t bring himself to meet Winnie’s eyes – he’d hated having to stay away from her. When he lost Bucky, when he came back to a world that didn’t know he was still alive – he’d had to let go of Bucky’s family as well. It had meant not only had he lost his best friend, but he’d lost his second family as well, and Winnie had been like a second mother all his life.

“Yes you did.” Winnie was still wide-eyed with anger and panting softly. But, she lifted her hand and cupped his cheek gently, running her thumb soothingly over his red cheek while she turned him enough to force him to look at her.

Steve looked into her eyes, finally, for a moment. And the walls cracked. He hiccupped as he started to crumble. “Mama Winnie…”

“Oh, Stevie.” She sighed and pulled him in close – wrapping him in her arms and guiding his head down to her breast – even though he had to stoop to reach low enough. She stroked the back of his head lovingly as she held onto him – letting him grip her as tightly as he allowed himself.

Steve breathed deep her scent – unchanged since the last time she had hugged him goodbye. She smelled of gardenias and honey – her perfume – and a floral type of oil that she used to treat her wild curls. At the smell of it, all the emotions and memories came flooding back. She smelled, faintly, of tobacco smoke, and he could almost start laughing at the hysterical joy. Most sons learned to smoke from their fathers, and one would have expected the same of Bucky, but the truth was that he’d adopted that trait from Winnie. Had stolen a couple of her cigarettes at thirteen and had been caught. Winnie had made both boys promise not to tell George, and they’d kept the secret. But, by the time Bucky had moved out of his parents’ house four years later to take care of Steve after the death of Sarah Rogers, George had known. He wasn’t happy that his son smoked, but he knew better than to try and stop them.

“Mama!” Becca’s cry from across the grocery is what broke the moment, just long enough for Steve to ease back from Winnie – his eyes widening at the sound of Becca’s voice.

“Mama!” Becca sounded ecstatic beyond belief. “Mama look who I found in the baking section!” Becca emerged from the aisle and into the main open area of the store. She was huge – heavily pregnant – and clearly dragging someone along behind her. Bucky.

Steve’s rounded eyes snapped from the figure of Becca, and back to Winnie as Bucky stumbled into view.

Winnie’s breath hitched in her throat. She took only a moment to take in the sight of Bucky, in his camel coloured dress pants, belted with a thin belt at the narrowest point of his lean waist, his ivory coloured dress shirt and the dark wool coat he was wearing. With his hair shorn the way it was, and his curls once again manifested, he looked like the boy that left her house in 1943, and never came home.

Bucky stopped the second he saw his mother – his jaw fell softly open as he took in the sight of her – a sight he never thought he would see again. “Ma…” It took only a second, before he ran across the thirty-foot distance between them, and straight into his mother’s arms. He hugged her tightly, burying himself into her like a scared little boy – like suddenly he didn’t need to be so strong – and Steve quickly noticed that both Bucky and his mother were crying. So he turned to greet Becca – who swiftly smacked him on the shoulder, before hugging him.

“Oh my boy… my sweet little boy…” Winnie murmured into Bucky’s dark curls as she knotted her fingers tightly in his coat and the tears ran down her cheeks. “We thought we’d lost you… how, how is this possible?” She looked up, keeping her arms still tightly locked around her eldest child, as she sought out Steve’s face. “How can you both be here…?”

Steve shook his head gently. “It’s a long story, Mama Winnie… and one we shouldn’t tell in here.”

“You’re coming home with us.” Becca folded her arms over her chest – a motion Steve quickly recognized was Bucky’s – and he suddenly realized just how much alike they were – and how much she must have missed her big brother.

He nodded without question. “Of course.”

Bucky sniffled wetly in his mother’s hair, and raised a hand to wipe away his tears. “Mama…”

“Shhh… Shh I’ve got you, darlin’. I’ve got you.” Winnie pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Steve’s heart was broken. The guilt in him was overpowering. He felt directly responsible for the Barneses losing Bucky in the first place. If he’d only just told Bucky to go back to Brooklyn – if he’d only just forced him to take the Honourable Discharge that was offered to – and rightly deserved by –Bucky after his capture following Azzano. If he’d only just asked Bucky to stay back that day in his role as sniper, rather than as a mission operative. If he’d only just managed even one of those things, Bucky would never have been on the train, never have fallen, never have become the subservient pet of HYDRA - he’d have been safe, and at home. There would never have been a letter of condolence sent home to Winnie and George. They’d have had their son the whole time.

The curry was forgotten for the night – Steve and Bucky quickly helped Winnie and Becca finish their own shopping, and carried it themselves as they walked back to the old neighbourhood with the two women. Back to Coffey Street where Bucky had grown up, and Steve had spent almost half of his childhood.

Bucky froze again, just on the shallow walkway once they reached the house. Winnie and Becca climbed the front steps and were unlocking the door before they’d noticed he’d stopped. Standing with two large brown paper bags of groceries in his arms, Bucky was just… taking in the sight of the house – unchanged since his youth. Unchanged in the eighty years since he’d last laid eyes on it.

Steve stepped up beside him, carrying the other two bags of groceries. He bumped shoulders gently with Bucky, letting the other man know that he was there – that he wasn’t alone or going through this without support of someone who understood what was going on in his mind right now. Bucky’s eyes only flickered to him for half of a second, before looking back at the house he had grown up in. He still hadn’t moved, and something Steve shifted. He leaned in and pressed a tender kiss to Bucky’s cheek, at the corner of friend’s mouth. He knew it was dangerous if they were seen, but the only ones looking were Winnie and Becca – neither of who had ever cared about how the boys had loved each other. He lingered there, keeping the soft kiss against Bucky’s cheek for as long as he dared.

Bucky’s eyes slid shut at the first touch of Steve’s lips on his skin, and he released a long, low, exhale – like he had been set free.

“I’ve got ya, Buck. I promise.” Steve murmured softly near his friend’s ear, and Bucky nodded in understanding as his grey eyes opened again. He took a deep breath, before following his mother and sister up the front steps, as Steve stayed close to his back. It wasn’t claustrophobic but comforting.

The kitchen was just the same as Steve remembered it from their youth – all dark cherry wood and teal wallpapering – even the oven – though it had been upgraded since the early ‘40s, was a pale mint coloured enamel. Steve and Bucky both followed to the two women inside and set the groceries onto the counter.

Dinner was an interesting affair – Brian, Rebecca’s husband, met his supposedly dead brother-in-law with shock and honour. George Barnes wouldn’t stop hugging his son – and when he did, it was only long enough to hug both Steve and Bucky to himself. He was a kind man, who had always been proud of both his boys.

The entire time that Winnie was cooking, Bucky kept trying to get up and help her – every time she pushed him right back down into his chair – chastising him every single time that she didn’t need his help, and that he was a guest. That, in turn, made Steve blush – because he’d been letting Bucky cook at his house. His blue eyes flickered over to his dark-haired friend, whose grey eyes were already locked on him. Steve’s shoulders came up, but Bucky’s expression clearly said _‘We both know I wouldn’t take no as an answer from you. Not like you can cook at all.’_

After dinner, Steve and Bucky found themselves in the living room, tucked onto the couch together – Becca sat off to Bucky’s left, while Steve was to his right. George and Winnie were in the love seat just across from them, while Brian was in the other sitting chair.

Becca was eight and a half months pregnant. It was why she and Brian and moved back into her childhood home, so that they had the support of family when the baby finally arrived. She was proud, she was ecstatic. Most of all though, she was so happy to share this moment with her beloved big brother. Tears of happiness were running down her cheeks as she carded her fingers back through her elder brother’s curls continuously. Bucky half laid on the couch – taking up a fair amount of Steve’s space as well – as Becca kept him close. His ear was gently pressed against the swell of her baby bump. His eyes were closed as he listened to the dual heartbeat of mother and child. His hand lovingly framed her side.

“I think it’s gonna be a boy.” Becca hummed softly as she kept stroking his hair.

“Ya are carryin’ pretty low.” Bucky turned his face and nuzzled the swell of her belly before slowly sitting upright again.

“Brian and I … well, we were thinking…” Becca’s eyes flickered to her husband, who smiled back at her lovingly. “And … well, if it is a boy… we’d… we’d like to name him after you: James Buchanan Proctor.”

Bucky’s jaw dropped slightly. “I… I…”

Steve lifted his hand and gently started rubbing the back of his friend’s neck soothingly.

“Becca… I… I’m honored, but…”

Her dark brows furrowed unhappily. “But what?”

“But he … he deserves to be named after a hero, not me.”

“But you _are_ a hero, Bucky.” Becca shook her head, not understanding. “There was even talks of creating a new medal in your honour – the Barnes Cross…”

Bucky cast his eyes down. “There’s a lot of stuff that none of you, but Steve, know…”

“Well, then tell us…” George leaned forward and squeezed his son’s knee reassuringly.

Steve could see the tension in his friend and immediately gripped his right shoulder affectionately. “Go ahead, Buck… I’m right here.”

Bucky turned to look at Steve and sighed softly. He bowed his head, taking the moment to touch his forehead to Steve’s for a beat, before exhaling softly. “There’s… a lot that you’re not going to like. And by the end you may be … disgusted… by me.”

“Nonsense!” Winnie leaned forward and swatted his other knee. “You could be a cold-blooded killer and you’d still be our little boy!”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to breathe. She could say it all, and maybe she really meant it – but she didn’t realize it was the truth, and once she knew that, it was going to change everything.

Steve wrapped his arm around Bucky and pulled him in close.

“Alright… well… I…” Bucky sighed. “Alright, I’ll have to start with Azzano… I don’t know how much you were told about my capture, and how myself and the other men were saved by Captain America… but the truth is that I was a captive of HYDRA for weeks, and in that time I was chosen by a mad doctor for his experimentation. They were trying to recreate the Super Serum that made Stevie like this,” he nodded his head toward the man hanging onto him. “I wasn’t the first – we knew that no one came back from the experimentation room – they all died. Except me. For whatever reason, it didn’t kill me – he just kept injecting me with compound after compound – I thought I was going to die from the pain. I was almost dead when Steve found me and took me out of there… but the serum, whatever the bastard managed to make of it, worked… course no one knew that… I never even told Steve… but it was pretty obvious to me, when I couldn’t get drunk, and despite all the … things… that they did before Steve found me… I healed pretty quickly.

“So… When I fell from the train – it was only common sense that everyone thought I had fallen to my death – honestly, I thought the same. But, I… I woke up at the bottom of the ravine, and I was missing my left arm-“

Bucky tensed as literally everyone’s eyes – even Steve’s – flickered to the arm at his left side. His sleeves were rolled up passed his elbows and the camouflage units were engaged, so that the metal prosthetic was completely disguised as his own natural left arm.

“I know, I know… it looks fine – let me explain. So, I was found by a Russian soldier on his patrol. He dragged me through the ravine to the nearest base. I kept drifting in and out – I think the only reason I didn’t bleed out was because the temperature was so cold, and my heartrate is naturally slower now after the serum… Anyway… I came to, and I was strapped to a gurney – and the Nazi doctor was standing over me again… They operated – removed the rest of my left arm – it had been … torn off… just above the elbow. So they took it up to just below my shoulder.”

Winnie was grinding her teeth angrily. “Tell me they at least gave you anaesthetic…”

Bucky watched her for a long moment, before sighing softly. “I wish I could, Ma, but it would be a lie. I blacked out again, though, and when I woke up again… they’d attached a prosthetic that anchored in and… connected to my nerves…

“I uh… I kept trying to fight back – and I did. I did for… years. The truth is, Mam, Da… I was captured, beat, tortured, and brainwashed… for years. HYDRA kept me as their … god I’m not sure even the word ‘pet’ covers it… But I was turned into their weapon – their killing machine.” His eyes dropped to his lap, as he traced figure eights over his thigh with his right thumb. Steve leaned in and pressed a loving kiss to Bucky’s temple.

“They called me the Fist of HYDRA… most people in the intelligence business… didn’t believe that I was real, so they called me a Ghost Story. But… in the circles that did believe me… well… my title was the Winter Soldier. The Russian HYDRA agents just called me Soldier… the American HYDRA agents called me the Asset. I…” he sighed softly and rubbed his forehead, swatting away his fringe of curls. “I was only allowed those names – I didn’t know who I was. I was not a person – I wasn’t a person. I was only allowed to be awake for missions… the rest of the time I was in Cryostasis… It’s why I haven’t aged. In the 70 years I was held by HYDRA before they sent me after Captain America – I was only awake for a total of maybe five years.

“Steve was also frozen, but his was accidental when he crashed the Valkyrie into the Arctic Ocean… So… HYDRA wanted to rule the world – typical villain garbage – and in order to achieve this goal, they sent me out after the one threat against them – Captain America… they just didn’t count on Stevie being able to break 70 years of conditioning.

“Its…it’s been a long bunch of years. I almost killed Steve, I went on the run until I was forced out of hiding, the world wanted me dead, I lost my left arm again, I put myself back into Cryo so I couldn’t hurt anyone if they had the Soldier’s trigger words that were embedded in my brain – this amazing young woman was able to remove them… I started farming goats in Africa, Steve was on the run from the law – he’d come stay with me for a few months at a time in between secret missions. Then… God how do I… Then an evil asshole alien wanted to take over everything so he killed half of the universe - and I was unfortunately one of them. So for five years I just ceased to exist, but Steve and Howard’s son along with all these other amazing heroes were able to undo the decimation and bring us all back – at the cost of Howard’s son and a woman I once trained as the Soldier… We lost everything…

“And Steve had the chance to be with Peggy here, now… so he came back for her… I’m only here temporarily – I want to stay to be with you all, but I can’t… this isn’t my place. I just came to say goodbye to Steve and – I know… I know I have done unforgivable things but-“

“You’re still my hero, Buck.” Becca snuggled as close as she could manage – lying her head onto his left shoulder.

“You’re always a hero, James.” George’s throat was tight. “No matter what they did ta ya. You are a hero. You survived and you got away.”

Bucky wasn’t one to usually cry – when he did, he tended to hide it fairly well. But, the tears were rolling down his face, as he looked between the members of his family – they all were giving him the same gentle smile. It wasn’t pity, or fear – it was support. He hiccupped and raised his hand to rub the tears off of his face.

Brian’s brows knit. “Not … I don’t wanna ask a question that might be rude but… you said you lost your left arm… twice… and… it looks pretty good ta me?”

Winnie, trying not to cry and therefore wanting to change the subject from Bucky’s torture, to the interest in his arm, hummed and nodded

“Oh it’s… it’s a prosthetic – the African Princess that took the trigger words out of me, she and her brother built it for me. It anchors in too, but it’s lighter and doesn’t hurt me like the other one used to. It’s made of metal, and it … well it doesn’t actually look like this, I just keep the camouflage units on when I’m out in public – at least at his point in history.” Bucky sniffed again and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his right hand. “I can… I can show ya, if ya want.”

“Only if ya wanna, kiddo.” George smiled softly – the mirror of Bucky’s own soft smile, and Steve relaxed beside his friend for the first time all evening.

Bucky nodded his head, “Yeah, I mean… it’s pretty neat aside from the history of why I have it.” He laughed softly and rubbed his eyes again one last time. Bucky carefully untangled himself from both Becca and Steve, instead sitting up straight as he unbuttoned his dress shirt. Shrugging out of it, leaving himself in his white undershirt, he revealed what looked like a completely normal left arm in the same soft olive-toned flesh as the rest of his body.

Bucky licked his lips briefly, working up the nerve. But this was his family, he was safe. So, he concentrated on his connection with the arm, as the sensors followed his desires. It started at his shoulder, and quickly flowed down his arm – the image of his skin being quickly replaced by the black and gold Vibranium of his Wakandan prosthetic.

Everyone present around him, Steve included (as he had not witnessed Bucky actually control the sensors), let out a soft little gasp of wonderment. Bucky found himself chuckling softly as he held out his arm and turned it over for them all to examine as they leaned forward. He wiggled his fingers, flexed his fist, and rotated his arm at the shoulder, before flexing the metallic bicep. Like the arm that HYDRA had put on him, the Vibranium arm recalibrated with a nearly silent _whir!_ and the plates shifted to adapt.

“You always did love those sci-fi stories – now it seems like you’ve had the chance to live them…” Winnie was smiling, but her heart was almost broken. “My sweet little boy.”

“So… you’re not staying…” George smiled sadly, and Bucky shook his head gently.

“I’m sorry… I can’t.”

“It’s okay, son… I ain’t gonna lie, it’s going to be hard when you leave… but at least we know you’ll be safe and alive this time. How long are ya here for?”

Bucky’s eyes dropped to his lap guiltily. “I have to leave on Wednesday… or I can’t get home - well, I could, but I’d have to break into a nuclear power plant and essentially rewire it for my purposes… and I’m pretty sure that’s not as easy as it sounds – even with my skills.” He laughed awkwardly.

Steve’s brows knit. “Wait…what? How… you never did tell me how you got here without using the Quantum Realm and Pym Particles –“

Bucky’s silver eyes flickered up to his friend’s face. “I told ya… more n’ one way ta skin a cat. Time Travel can be as easy or as hard as ya want… I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to use the particles, so I figured out another way.”

“You… ya just… figured out… Time Travel in your spare time??” Steve blinked incredulously.

Bucky rolled his eyes. No one ever gave him credit for his intelligence – Steve used to, but he seemed to have forgotten it in the nearly ten years they had been apart (for Steve). “Yeah, wasn’t as hard as ya’d think… Look I know I’m just some bum that dropped outta school and worked at the docks to take care’a ya, but I’ve never been stupid.”

Steve shook his head firmly “No! I didn’t mean – I just… _how_?”

“I figured out a way of foldin’ the fabric of spacetime over upon itself – which was the hardest part, and even that wasn’t really that hard. Just have ta have the right things at your disposal – and, well, I had Tony’s lab. Once I was able to get it folded the way I wanted, all I had to do was punch a hole through the two sides that were touchin’ each other. Opened a doorway, and here I am.”

“Okay, but how does one punch a hole through spacetime?” Becca blinked, and cocked her dark brow up.

“Electricity – a lot of electricity.”

Steve paused for a long moment. “The sudden electrical storm… that was you?”

“Yeah, I didn’t actually expect all of that, but I suppose it should have been obvious.”

“Thor helped you?”

Bucky balked. “Thor? No, he’s off planet somewhere. No I just… well. Okay. I might have… kinda… overloaded the entire eastern seaboard. Sure there’s a blackout, but the surge was what I needed. But, because time is different here than it is there, I only have till Wednesday to get home – that’ll be about 14 hours there, and they’ll have everything coming back online. The portal will close and I’ll be stuck here to wait it out the natural way. Or use nuclear means.”

Steve was just… in shock.

Winnie, more impressed than shocked, shook it off. “Right, well, if we don’t have you for very long, you’re staying the weekend – both of you. Don’t argue.”

Steve laughed a little, “Yes ma’am.”

“Bucky, your room is still unoccupied – you two can share till Monday morning.”

Bucky unfurled the sheets, and Steve caught them on the other side of the bed. Together they made up Bucky’s childhood (and young adulthood) bed with fresh sheets, before pulling the old, lumpy, down comforter over it.

“Are we really… sharing the bed?” Steve asked quietly as he tucked the bottom of the sheets on his side into tight hospital corners.

Bucky rolled his eyes in the dimly lit room. “We always shared this bed when you stayed over. Besides, we’ve been sleeping in the spare bedroom in your house, together, for the last week. I think we can manage two nights here.”

Steve turned a little pink. “It’s… it’s not that…” he carded his fingers back through his blond hair.

Bucky quirked a dark brow as he finished jostling the two pillows into cases. “Than what is it?”

Steve’s eyes fell to the floor slightly. “It’s… I mean… Mama Winnie… she… I think she knows about the way… we used to be.” He sighed softly as he ran a hand over the crisp line of the bedding.

“Of course she knows what we used to be like, we were kids back then –“

Steve quickly and resolutely shook his head with a firm motion. “I don’t mean when we were kids, Buck… I think… I think she knows we were… lovers… back then.” He swallowed around the lump forming in his tightening throat.

“Stevie, if you haven’t figured that out by now, I worry about your mental capacity.” Bucky rolled his grey eyes, and sad down on the bed easily. He shrugged his shoulders. “So what if she knows? Neither my Ma, Da, sister – or her husband – are gonna say jack shit. Know why?”

Steve shook his head as he forced himself to look at Bucky, seating himself on the opposite side of the small, double sized, mattress. “Why?”

“’cause they’re far too busy bein’ happy we’re alive. They don’t care what we used ta get up ta – they never did. Ma knew, she knew we were in long before we ever did. So no, punk, ain’t no one gonna judge us for sharin’ my bed like we used ta. They never would have offered the room ta both of us if it was an issue. Got it? Now come on, tonight took it completely outta me, and I just wanna sleep. I only got another thirty six or so hours with my family; I intend to enjoy it.”

Getting up, Bucky pulled down his side of the sheets, before stripping down to his black boxer briefs – the only piece of 21st century clothing that he was wearing – and setting it all aside to be re-worn the following day. Steve quietly followed suit, until he was in the pale blue cotton boxers he was wearing under it all. Together, they crawled silently into the bed, meeting in the middle as they dropped the sheets and comforter back over themselves. They settled down, though not entangled as they had for the week prior and drifted off.

Only when Steve was sure that Bucky was fast asleep did he finally whisper: “I love you.” Safe in the knowledge that his former lover had not heard him.

In the morning, Steve awoke alone in the bed. He was disoriented at first – not expecting to find himself in the bedroom he’d last stayed in in 1934 – the last nights leading up to Sarah’s funeral when the Barneses had happily welcomed him into their home. But slowly the memory of the night before flooded back to him – Bucky and his family reuniting – being asked to stay until Monday morning when they would have no choice but to leave for Steve to get to work on time. He sighed softly, wanting to bury himself back into the pillow that still smelled faintly of Bucky’s skin after a night of being slept on. But he knew he had to get up – their time was limited, and he wasn’t about to waste it by sleeping through it. He’d sleep through at least a week after Bucky left on Wednesday – his low point would let him recover from today. That was enough.

Slowly pulling himself from the softness of his dreams, Steve noticed that the covers were pulled up over his bare shoulders. Added to the bedding he had known was on him the night before, another blanket was gently laid over him, and tucked under his jaw with the rest. Steve knew how he slept – knew that he tossed and turned when he wasn’t in his own bed, and threw the covers off himself, leaving himself cold in the morning. It sluggishly dawned on him that Bucky must have tucked him back in and covered him to keep him warm when he left the room an hour or so earlier. Steve blushed a little, as he slowly sat up and pushed the nest of warm blankets off himself.

Quietly going through his morning ritual and then redressing, Steve snuck downstairs – to find Bucky already in the kitchen with his mother. Bucky was cooking a large skillet full of scrambled eggs while another sizzled full of bacon and tomatoes. Steve could smell Bucky’s hang-over cure breakfast clear as day (though none of them had imbibed that much the night before), and he moved to walk into the kitchen, until he heard the quietened voices of mother and son speaking in private.

“What do you mean he married _Peggy_?” Winnie’s voice was low, and despite its normal warmth, it was hardened now.

“What it sounds like, Ma. Steve came back here to be with the love of his life…”

Steve froze in place – half a step to the left of the door, where they wouldn’t spot him right away. He squeezed his eyes shut. Coming back had never been that simple. Did Bucky really still think that?

“What the hell happened, James?” Winnie growled lowly. “There was a time when _you_ were everything to him, and he to you…”

There was a moment of silence, and Steve could only assume, by his knowledge of his friend, that Bucky had shrugged his shoulders trying to avoid the question. But eventually the man’s voice broke the tense silence. “It’s alright, Ma… It’s just not like that anymore…”

“But he held you all through … all through… last night.”

“Yeah, Ma, I know. But we’ve always been friends, right? He was just bein’ a rock for me.”

“Bucky… you can’t be this alright with this… what happened, sweetie?”

“Funny thing about being the half of the universe that ceased to exist for five years… Your loved ones start to move on…”

There was a pause, during which Steve felt his heart breaking in his chest as he waited for Bucky to keep talking.

“But not from her… he never let go of Peggy so it seems. Guess I was just the next best thing-“

Steve couldn’t take it any longer. He tore himself away from the wall and walked straight into the kitchen – his feet carrying him faster than he could even consider what he was going to say or do. He did the only thing that came to mind, and that was saying his friend’s name. “Buck-“

Winnie started, gasping as she snapped her head towards the blond man. Bucky had already heard him coming – even without his enhanced hearing, he was always able to tell when Steve was approaching, no matter if he was 95lbs, or 240lbs. When Bucky turned to look at Steve, responding only to his name being said, his gaze was resolute – and Steve spotted the trace of the soldier – not the Winter Soldier, but the boy who had been trained by the US Government to be a sniper during the second world war – the boy who would sit unmoving for days on end to take down his target. The boy – the man – who would not be moved.

Steve’s mouth ran dry, as he opened his mouth to speak. But words failed him, and he waffled back and forth for a moment, mouthing like a fish at the air. “I… Bucky.” He started, hoping to be able to build from that as his faculties returned to him. He was so incredibly blindsided by Bucky’s words, that he didn’t know what else to do. “How… how can you ever think-“

Bucky turned the flame down on the burners, before turning to face Steve properly. He folded his arms over is chest and shifted his weight until it was held on one solid leg with his pelvis tilted off kilter. He cocked a dark brow but said nothing as he gazed back at Steve with judgement.

Steve swallowed nervously – he could feel the daggers being glared at him by Winnie, off to the side, but they weren’t as heart rending as the cold, uncompromising, gaze of Bucky’s steely grey eyes. “I thought we settled this-“

Winnie growled threateningly. “Settled what, Steven? That you left my little boy behind-“

“Ma…” Bucky’s soft voice warned her gently. His eyes never left Steve’s.

“Bucky… I love you.” He whispered faintly, shaking as the words left his lips. It had been ten years since he last spoken those them and he knew that outside of this house, they would not be accepted by general society.

When Bucky said nothing in return, nor even lifted his brow, Steve spoke again. “I always have, Buck… but-“

“But I’m not the love of your life, I get it, Steven.” Bucky finally spoke, and the conviction in his voice shattered what remained of Steve’s heart.

“No, Buck… that’s not… that’s not what happened at all. It was always you, darling… always.” Steve reached out slowly for Bucky, but the other man made no move to unfold his arms or come any closer.

Steve swallowed tightly, knowing he was trapped between a rock and a hard place. All his mistakes had come back to snap at his heels and swallow him whole. There was no right answer – he’d already hurt both Bucky and Peggy, and now he was going to have to face it. “I… I thought that you were gone. I never actually thought that there was a chance at… getting you back again, Buck. When Thor killed Thanos, I thought that was the end of it. I had no idea if there was anything that could be done after that, and I lived for years thinking all hope was lost. I didn’t even know if I’d see you when I died – I have no idea if I can die, and… it wasn’t just that the decimation had killed you – it’s that you ceased to exist… where do people who don’t exist go? I thought… god forgive me, Bucky, but I thought you were well and truly gone… And then I thought, hey… I have the means to go back in time, and… I can have the life I would have had then-“

Bucky’s jaw tightened, and Steve fell silent, hearing his friend’s teeth grinding back and forth. “That’s not what happened, and we both know it, Steven.”

“Yes it is-“

“I came _back_. I came back just like all the others. I was with you, I was right there with you, and then you decided that enough was enough. You decided it was the end of the line, not me. You left.”

“I know… I know I left and Bucky… I would take it back if I could, but…”

“But you have Peggy to worry about now, I know Steve. Why do you think I came to visit, and not stay? For one thing this ain’t my time anymore. And as much as I love my family – Ma you know I do” Bucky shot a glance to his mother, before carrying on. “There’s nothin’ ta keep me here. You understand me? When I told you I came to say goodbye, I meant it.” Bucky turned back to the eggs, and kept cooking, resolutely ignoring Steve.

But Steve couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take the wall that existed between them, no matter how many times they tried to talk it through. There were just some hurts that could not be alleviated, and this was obviously one that broke the camel’s back. He had to change it, had to do something. He still loved Bucky, more than he could ever explain. Yes, he’d made a mess of multiple lives, and was continuing to do so, but not acting wasn’t any better.

Steve crossed the kitchen floor in three long strides. His heart was in his throat and pounding erratically, but this was the only chance he had – at least that’s what he told himself. His hands darted out, and he seized Bucky by his narrow waist. He pulled Bucky back from the stove, forcing a slight gasp from the other man. He turned Bucky swiftly and, taking that one last ounce of courage, swooped in. He pressed a firm kiss to the other man’s lips – desperate to make Bucky see the truth.

Bucky half hummed and half growled in surprise as he flailed for a moment. He kept his lips firmly pressed together, stopping Steve from even thinking he could lick his way into mouth. The spatula was still in his hand, and he used it. He brought it up and clocked Steve in the side of the head with it as hard as he could without killing him.

Winnie gasped in surprise in the background, but Steve barely noticed her at the moment. He jerked away from Bucky – his eyes completely full of surprise as his hand flew off of Bucky’s waist and went to the side of his head. “What-“

Bucky tossed the spatula away and turned to Steve with every intention of chewing him out about manners and his behaviour – but the second he _actually_ saw the look of stunned rejection in Steve’s cerulean eyes, he couldn’t help it. His hands darted out and he grabbed Steve’s jaw in both hands – cradling his face, if a little tightly. Without missing a beat, he pulled Steve’s face back in close, and pressed his mouth to Steve’s – instantly sucking softly at Steve’s lower lip and licking his way softly into Steve’s mouth. The other man opened for him immediately, with a soft little whimper, as his hands fell back to Bucky’s waist- framing his body gently.

Winnie hissed a quiet sound of satisfaction as she turned away to give them a moment of privacy.

Steve’s fingers dug into the dense muscle of Bucky’s torso as he held onto him. He pulled him closer as he sucked softly on Bucky’s tongue – trying to fulfil a long set aside desire. When they finally separated, panting softly, their foreheads fell together as their breath intermingled. Eyes closed, and still holding onto each other, Steve nuzzled Bucky’s nose gently – wanting to stay in that moment for as long as he could. Wanting Bucky’s proximity to keep reality at bay for as long as possible. His words were panted softly, but the promise he’d made to himself no longer seemed so important. Not in this moment. “I love you… Bucky I love you.” Steve swallowed tightly, knowing that he was asking too much to think that Bucky might still feel the depth of love for him that he’d once carried.

“I love you too, punk.” Bucky’s warm breath puffed against the sensitive shell of his ear, and Steve shivered. He eased his hands off of Bucky’s waist, long enough to wrap his arms around the man and hug him lovingly as he settled his face into his shoulder.

Sighing quietly, Bucky squeezed his eyes closed as he hugged Steve back – cupping the back of his golden head to hold him close.

“My boys…” Winnie sighed proudly.

“They get back together yet?” George Barnes, having slipped into the kitchen, asked his wife in a mock whisper. Winnie tried her best not to start laughing, even as George gathered her up into his arms and nuzzled at her grey-dappled curls. “Mornin’ sweetheart.”

“Morning.” Winnie murmured as she sank back in George’s arms.

Steve lifted his head from Bucky’s shoulder, and leaned up just long enough to press a soft and chaste kiss to Bucky’s lips, which the other man returned.

But as much as they loved each other, it wasn’t this simple. There was going to be a hard decision to make, and Steve knew that. It was already weighing on him.

“I should finish cooking breakfast before the eggs congeal.” Bucky eased himself out of Steve’s arms, and went back to the stove – quickly rinsing off the spatula he’d smacked Steve with first.

Twenty minutes later, with all members of the house awake, the breakfast that Bucky had been cooking was dished out and served. Steve sat beside Bucky, to his right, at the table. Bucky was left handed – had been born that way, though Sister Meredith had beat it out of him in school, but it remained even with the prosthetic arm. He usually wrote with his right, as he’d been forcibly taught, but other tasks, such as handling a fork, usually ended up in his left hand. With this fact in mind, as they were eating, Steve slipped his left hand beneath the table and entwined his fingers with Bucky’s right hand. Bucky glanced his way as he lifted a fork full of fried tomato to his mouth and gave Steve’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Breakfast passed with the two of them holding hands the entire time.

Sunday was spent in the quiet, bittersweet, glow of family. Family that neither Bucky nor Steve had had for years. But there was never a question that they all loved and supported both of the boys – and always had.

It was hard to go to bed Sunday night for Bucky, knowing it was the last night that he would spend in this bed, in this room, and with his family. Unlike Steve, who had to leave in the morning to catch a train in order to quickly run home and change before heading to the high school for the day, Bucky was going to stay with his family until the evening. Still, it was a ticking clock and they all knew it.

Steve crawled into the bed, as Bucky leaned to the other side to turn of the lamp. Steve watched him for a moment, and though Bucky had always been adept at hiding his emotions when he really wanted to, Steve could see the sadness radiating off of him like waves. So he did the only thing he could think to – wrapped Bucky up in his arms and collapsed down against him, so that he could bury his face in Bucky’s neck.

Bucky huffed out an unexpected breath but settled back against his pillow as he looked down at Steve, who laid with his face in Bucky’s chest. “What’s this, huh?” Bucky ran his fingers through Steve’s blond hair.

Steve simply shook his head. “Just huggin’ ya.”

Bucky watched him in silence; he knew what Steve was doing, and he smiled gently. “Thank you…”

“Always.” Steve nosed at the light patch of dark hair dusting Bucky’s chest as he got comfortable. “Buck?” he asked after a moment.

“Yeah, Stevie?” Bucky stroked his hair gently.

“Are you sure you can’t stay… I mean… your family is here, and you don’t have to leave them behind.” Resting his cheek on Bucky’s shoulder, Steve peeked up at him.

“Stevie…” Bucky sighed softly. “For one thing, I can’t live here under my own name – and that means I can’t really be seen with my family often either. For another, it’s dangerous for me in this era… all I need is the wrong SHIELD or HYDRA agent to see me, and I’m recaptured. I don’t want to turned into that monster again – but more importantly, I don’t want to imagine a world with two Winter Soldiers – the world would burn if HYDRA had two of me… but really, most of all... Stevie I can’t stay here to watch you live your life with Peggy. I will always love you, to the very marrow of my bones, but I can’t watch it.”

Steve dropped another kiss to the centre of Bucky’s chest, nuzzling at the valley between his pectorals. “What if I… what if I didn’t ask you to?”

“That’s why I’m leaving, Stevie.”

“No I mean…” Steve sighed and smacked his forehead down against Bucky’s clavicle. “I love you… I’ve always loved you… and I thought I loved Peggy – and I do, but it’s not in the same way. I… god I can’t hurt her, but I can’t… Bucky… I’ve spent four years desperate and craving for you- certain that I would never have a chance to make it right, but … but you’re here and I—“

Bucky surged forward, crashing his lips against Steve’s – kissing him fiercely and longingly. When he pulled back, he panted softly. “Stop talking about breaking your wedding vows and go to sleep.”

Steve deflated, but nodded silently. He snuggled closer, keep his cheek pressed against the patch of soft chest hair, lingering there until he finally fell asleep.

When Steve awoke early in the morning, he wanted nothing more than to stay warm and secure in Bucky’s arms. Bucky held him the same way a father holds a small child; arms wrapped around him and holding him to the safety of his breast. Steve would have happily paid out all the money he had ever had, and ever would, if it meant that he never had to let go of the other man. If it meant that Wednesday would never come.

Steve nuzzled Bucky’s warm, slightly sweaty, breast lovingly before forcing himself to disengage. He pulled away, and slowly sat up. Bucky, still asleep, hummed quietly and shifted on the bed. Steve watched him for a moment – asleep, the years melted off Bucky’s face. His curls, unruly as they always had been in sleep, only made Steve’s heart leap slightly. Looking down at Bucky, he saw only the sweet boy he’d fallen in love with as a child, and not the battle-hardened man that he’d regretfully let go after the war against Thanos. Reaching out gently, Steve stroked Bucky’s curly fringe back from his forehead. Leaning down, he pressed a tender kiss between Bucky’s brows, as he slipped his hand under Bucky’s left hand as it rested against the top of his abdomen. Steve stroked his thumb over the cool metal, before lifting it and kissing Bucky’s knuckles. He brushed his lips over the golden lines circling around Bucky’s black Vibranium fingers.

Bucky hummed sleepily, though he hadn’t yet started to wake. Steve gently settled Bucky’s hand back against his own abdomen, before rising from the bed. Redressing, he quietly crept from the room – it was still only a little after five in the morning, but by the time he got back to his own house, showered and dressed, it would be just after seven, and time for him to leave to catch the train for work. He met Winnie on his way out and hugged her tightly as they both fought off tears. She kissed his cheek, before smacking him. “You figure it out, Steven…”

Steve half laughed a watery chuckle as he rubbed his cheek. “I’ll try, Mama Winnie…”

“Good, now get going, before you’re late for work.”

The train ride home was lonely in the pre-dawn wolflight. Steve spent most of it staring straight ahead, or at his hands folded in his lap. It was early, so the cars were empty but for a few people either heading to an early shift or returning from a late one. The time it took for him to shower and dress for the day, and the second train trip further south to get to the high school was basically the same.

Steve spent much of his time contemplating everything.

He loved Bucky with all of his heart, and always had. He had loved Bucky without condition, for as long as he’d known him – long before either of them had understood what love really meant. He’d loved him, he’d loved him so wholly that for years he would have simply been content to remain as Bucky’s closest friend. But that had changed on July 2nd, 1937, trapped at the top of the Wonder Wheel in Coney Island for more than an hour. It had changed, because Steve couldn’t take it any longer. He’d confessed that he was in love with Bucky, and Bucky had returned it. They’d shared their first kiss in the carriage at the top of the Ferris wheel, out of the sight of everyone. They’d missed the last train home, so they had walked the three hours back to Red Hook – Bucky had carried him the last few miles home. They’d made love for the first time that night. And they hadn’t looked back since.

So why had it ceased to matter? When had Steve thought that getting Bucky back wasn’t the greatest gift the universe could have bestowed upon him? When had it stopped mattering? When had his heart and soul left him?

Steve knew that once upon a time he would have cast himself to the fates if it meant that Bucky was safe and alive – that he would have leaped after the man when he fell from the train had he not had other men to protect. Steve had already proven this to himself – that he’d left himself defenceless against the Winter Soldier, with only the ghost of a hope that the man would recognize him, or else kill him and end the suffering for both of them. He’d sided with Bucky against a large portion of the Avengers – and against 117 nations – just to make sure that Bucky was safe and free.

The truth was, Steve didn’t know when that stopped being enough- and he knew it was his own imperfections that had led him to this point, not Bucky.

He’d told Bucky that he was worth fighting for, worth it all.

So why had he taken a course of action that only proved to Bucky that he hadn’t been worth the strife and the grief? As if anything could change the way that Steve felt about Bucky?

Steve had loved Bucky through the days when they were both cocksure kids. Through the days when Bucky was a damaged, rescued, POW and Steve was suddenly in a rank he knew he hadn’t earned. Through the days when Steve had thought Bucky had fallen to his death and he mourned for him as though he’d lost his heart and soul itself. Through the days when hell itself was real, and he found the love of his life a captive, brainwashed, slave. Through the days where all he could do was hope to track down the other man. Through the days when he’d had to fight to save his friend. Through the days when they tentatively came back together as lovers.

Steve didn’t know why he had gone back for Peggy.

He’d cared for Peggy, that was never unknown. But he hadn’t known Peggy for long – on and off for two years, but never was he strictly with her. Truly, he had never been with her at all – they’d only shared a first date when he arrived here, following Thanos.

Steve didn’t know what he had been thinking, but now… now he had a choice to make. A very hard one.

Stay here with Peggy, to stay true to his wedding vows, but watch the love of his life walk away and know that he would never see Bucky again – never hear his laugh nor smell the sweetness of his hair nor feel the softness of his lips as they kissed.

Or, go home with Bucky – or at least find a way back with the few remaining Pym Particles that he’d kept under lock and key for four years after setting his affairs in order here and saying goodbye to Peggy – thereby fulfilling one ancient promise, but break the vows he’d made to another, and break her heart all over again.

The choice should have been obvious, and truly spoken in some ways it was. But his moral side was at war over it and had been since Bucky had shown up almost two weeks before.

Steve found his mind wandering between classes all day; his thoughts went unbidden to Bucky – wondering how his friend was managing his last day with his family – wondering if he should tell Bucky that night to just go and spend the following two days with the Barneses as well – to give him every possible second with his parents and his sister.

What he noticed, rather guiltily, around two in the afternoon was that his mind had not wandered to Peggy at all. He hoped that she was safe, but beyond that curtesy, no matter how much he knew he should be thinking of her, Steve’s thoughts lingered on Bucky and not Peggy.

When Steve made it home that afternoon, the house was quiet. Bucky still hadn’t returned from Red Hook yet, and Steve couldn’t blame him. He himself had been unable to leave Sarah Rogers’ side when she was dying, and he knew the moments were dwindling. 

In truth, even after she’d said her goodbyes and breathed her last rattling breaths, and Death had come for her, Steve had not been able to tear himself from her side. Bucky had picked him up like a sack of potatoes and carried him from the hospital when the hours had passed. He’d carried him resolutely, even while Steve cried, growled, and pounded his fists into Bucky’s strong back. He’d hated Bucky that night – as much as he could bring himself to hate his friend – because Bucky hadn’t even questioned where he was taking Steve. They had gone immediately to the Barneses’ house on Coffey Street. Bucky had carried him from Brooklyn City Hospital to the Smith St/Fulton St. station, and held him against his breast the entire twenty-five-minute train ride back to the Van Brunt St/Coffey St. station. It was two in the morning – next to no one had been around to question why the two boys were entangled like pups. Given the fact that Steve was strained red and bawling his eyes out into Bucky’s warm chest as Bucky stroked his hair and sang, ‘_I See The Moon’_ in a low voice, no one could doubt that the two needed each other.

Steve understood why Bucky was no back at the house yet – in fact he was glad for it. It meant that Bucky was spending another evening with his parents. Truth be told, as much as Steve wanted to see him – wanted to curl up in his arms again that night to get the last moments he could with Bucky, Winnie, George, and Becca needed him more. They deserved him more.

Although he was pretty sure that Bucky would be at least having dinner with his family, Steve set about making a simple dinner – goulash served over rice rather than pasta – in the off chance that Bucky did come home hungry.

Around six in the evening, Steve heard the front door opening, and he called out quickly. “Buck! I’m gonna make your favourite of my Ma’s recipes!”

“It’s just me, Steve.” Peggy’s voice, from the kitchen doorway, sent chills down Steve’s spine.

He had neither said, nor done, anything that would incriminate him, but still he looked at her as though he’d seen a ghost. “Pe… Pegs!” He stammered. “You’re home… early.”

“By the time I got to London, they had most of the situation already mopped up.” She tugged off her gloves as she stepped into the kitchen.

Steve felt like he was visibly sweating; he hadn’t been expecting his wife home until at least the following evening. “Oh… that’s… good.” He swallowed tightly.

“Something the matter, Darling?” She quirked a brow as she looked up at him, brushing her dark curls out of her face.

“N… No. Nothing…”

Peggy glanced around and noted that only she and Steve seemed to be home – it was obvious, given the way that her husband had automatically called out for his friend, and she had already made note of it. “James isn’t here?”

“He uh… he was spending the day with his family… we ran into them in the grocery on Saturday afternoon, and well… I couldn’t let him leave without at least saying a proper goodbye to them…”

“Oh! I’m glad for him. Is he coming back tonight, or?”

“We agreed that he’d be here, yeah… but I can’t really blame him for –“

The front door opened again, and Bucky’s voice called out, before he had time to see Peggy’s jacket and coat on the rack in the entrance, “Stevie, honey, I brought the spices for the curry…” his voice died in his throat as he spotted Peggy’s clothing, and hissed to himself quietly - something Steve, only with his enhanced hearing, barely made out as _“for a spy you are incredibly unobservant, Barnes.”_

Peggy quirked her brow as she looked up at her husband. _“Honey?”_ she mouthed silently at him as Bucky stepped into the kitchen like a dog with its tail between its legs.

“Uh… Hi, Margaret.” Bucky forced a smile as he adjusted the brown paper bag in his hands.

Peggy smiled back at him. “Hello, James. What did you bring?” She chose to push the strange greeting aside.

“Uh, well … Steve was craving curry so… I … bought the spices…”

“Oh, that sounds lovely, James.”

Bucky’s grey eyes darted like quicksilver to Steve’s face, with a look of mild upset, before he put on the same charming smile for Peggy that had won the hearts of every girl in Brooklyn back in the ‘30s. “Why don’t you go relax, Pegs. Draw yourself a bath or something, while I start on dinner?”

Steve glanced at the ingredients he’d already taken out for the goulash and sighed softly as he started to bundle them back into the cabinets and the refrigerator.

“That sounds like a _perfect_ idea, thank you James.” Peggy smiled between the two men, before turning and walking confidently from the kitchen, heading towards the staircase to the upper level where the master bedroom and their main bathroom was located.

Bucky’s posture immediately slumped when she was gone. He set the groceries on the counter, immediately turning to apologize to Steve for the slip up – catching Steve already staring at him. “I’m sorry, I should have been more careful, after all these years I should have known better.”

But Steve’s response wasn’t one that he expected, not in a million years. “Am I… am I still your honey?” he swallowed tightly as he forced himself to concentrate on Bucky’s eyes.

Bucky’s brows shot up as he studied Steve’s face for a moment. His eyes briefly flickered the way that Peggy had gone, but finding the coast clear, he turned back to Steve. “Of _course_ you’re still my honey… but, if Peggy brings it up just … I dunno, tell her it was a joking pet name, or something. God, I’m so sorry Stevie.”

Steve shook his head, and hearing the water running upstairs, he finally relaxed enough that he fell into Bucky’s arms. Hugging the other man, he nuzzled Bucky’s slightly stubble-shaded cheek. He murmured softly, “Gonna have ta shave in the mornin’, Buck… ya got a blue chin.”

Bucky chuckled lowly, and clapped Steve upside the head. “Yeah, well, I shaved this mornin’, ya know how it grows.”

“What are we gonna do, Buck?” Steve sighed softly, still hugging his friend around the waist as he looked to him for comfort and validation.

“Do?” Bucky glanced down at him. “We’re not gonna _do_ anythin’, Stevie. We’re gonna cook dinner, and we’re gonna watch television and chat like we do every night. Then, we’re gonna go to bed – me to mine, and you and Peggy to yours – no, don’t argue Steve. That slip up of mine was too close, and we both know it. Peggy deserves more than this – she deserves her husband being in bed with her and not his _male_ best friend.”

It cut through Steve like a knife. He had known that something along those lines would be Bucky’s response, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been looking for something different. “And… what if that’s not what _I _want?”

“What you or I want makes no difference, Stevie. You promised her a life when you married her, and she deserves more than the half-hearted existence you’ve been giving her these last two weeks.”

“Peggy would understand…” Steve no longer knew if he was telling the truth or lying to convince Bucky that they could be alright. He knew that his wife had no trouble with homosexuality, but it was a very different question when it involved one’s own spouse.

Bucky sighed as he slowly shook his head from one side to the other, “Steve…”

“No, Bucky please… _Please_…” truthfully, Steve no longer knew what he was begging for – only that he loved Bucky and this entire situation had torn them apart.

But Bucky turned away, and immediately started on combining the ingredients for the curry. Steve fell silent.

There was a weight in the house, and Steve could feel it on his shoulders whenever he looked at either Bucky or Peggy all through dinner. The curry, no matter how good it was, tasted of ash in his mouth. Again, he couldn’t concentrate – his eyes were lingering too long on Bucky when he thought the others didn’t notice. He didn’t rightfully care if they did. Peggy watched him, discreetly, through her peripherals.

When ten thirty rolled around, and they were each saying their nightly farewells to each other, Bucky smiled a little sadly at Peggy, before walking into the back hall, heading for the spare bedroom. Steve watched him go – eyes still trying to follow him after he had disappeared into the hall.

“Steve…” Peggy lifted her hand gently cradled his jaw in her hand, slowly and carefully turning his face towards her own. “Darling, talk to me…”

Steve squeezed his eyes closed as his throat tightened. He shook his head gently, “I’m fine.” His voice was strained.

“You most certainly are _not_, Steven Grant Rogers.” Peggy chastised him kindly. “Tell me what’s wrong. You look at him like your heart has been ripped out.”

Steve shook his head again, trying to dismiss it all. He couldn’t tell Peggy – even if she may understand. “I just don’t want to say goodbye to him again.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it certainly didn’t contain all the layers of nuanced truth.

Peggy watched him for a moment – beautiful smoky quartz coloured irises dancing over Steve’s downturned face. “It’s more than that… Steve you know you can tell me anything.”

He tried to shake his head again, “It’s nothin’, Pegs… I swear it’s just-“

“Don’t lie to me, Steven.” She warned, before soothing him by brushing her thumb lovingly over his cheek. “Now, sit back down on the couch and tell me everything.”

Steve sighed and lowered himself back down onto the couch. “There’s nothing to tell…”

“Steve, you look at him like he’s the sun. And don’t think I hadn’t noticed that you weren’t in bed with me for the last week.” She lowered herself onto the couch at his side, immediately picking up his hand in her own and entwining their fingers so she could squeeze his comfortingly.

Steve flushed bright red, stumbling and stammering trying to find a way of explaining to her. In the end he stupidly settled on “Of course I was!”

Peggy quirked her brow, a look that clearly said that no one believed him. “Steve, you already told me that the two of you shared a bed in your tiny flat before the war. And don’t forget that I know the two of you shared your officers’ quarters during the war.”

Steve exhaled slowly, it trembled slightly. “I just… I’m sorry Peggy, I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to wake you with my tossing and turning. I really only got up to lie on the couch or read or something, but… I had to talk to Bucky and we just… ended up falling asleep together again. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I didn’t intend on it to keep happening every night…”

“No, but it did.” Peggy nodded calmly. “Do you _love_ him, Steve?”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself not to answer. The act in and of itself was answer enough for Peggy.

“Oh _Steve_…” She sighed softly and lifted her hand, stroking his golden fringe off of his forehead. “How long, Darling?”

“I… I think I loved him even before birth…” Steve barely whispered, as he kept his eyes rooted to the floor.

Peggy’s heart sank, not for disappointment, but shared sadness with him. “Were you ever going to tell me, or just suffer alone in miserable silence?” Her voice was smooth, and her tone gentle.

“I…” Steve paused for a moment. “I _couldn’t_ tell you, you know what the laws are-“

“I don’t care about any bloody laws, Steve. I care about _you_. Why didn’t you tell me that you were in love with him?”

“Because… Because the two of you never saw eye to eye… I know you didn’t care for him during the war – and then one day he was just… gone… and I…” his throat was tightening up further but he had to force himself through this. If Bucky could tell his family about the horrors that he had gone through at the hands of HYDRA, then Steve could tell Peggy this. “I’d lost him, and I didn’t… I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle being without him, so when the Valkyrie-“

Peggy’s eyes slowly rounded as she gazed at her husband. The realization washed over as she studied his face, and the slump of his shoulders. And suddenly, so much more of those few days between Bucky’s fall and Steve’s apparent death made more sense. “Oh, Steve… You never _meant_ to survive…”

Steve shook his head. “I wanted to be with him… I wanted to jump after him when he fell, but I had to look out for the rest of our men… I couldn’t do that to them. I wanted to be with him – we’d promised each other till the end of the line, but I’d missed the stop that Bucky’d taken and… and I just wanted to be with him…” He exhaled a slow and shuddering breath as the tears welled up in his eyes. He’d never spoken of it like this, not even to Bucky – had never needed to, because Bucky had always known just what was bothering Steve. Voicing it now was more painful than he’d expected, as it forced him to put old feelings and intangible thoughts into words.

“And then… you woke up, seventy years into the future… and like a miracle James Barnes was there too…” Peggy squeezed his hand, and stroked his face with the other. Steve nodded, still not quite able to meet her eyes. Peggy pressed on. “And you fell right back in love with the boy from Brooklyn – no matter how damaged he was… even when he wasn’t himself.”

“It never mattered to me who he’d become… I loved him. It didn’t matter if he was damaged – so was I. We’d both changed… I didn’t matter if he’d never remember me.” Steve lifted his hand and wiped away the tears that wanted to fall. His eyes were burning.

“And, wondrously… he still loved you too… enough to break through seventy years of brainwashing and torture…”

The tears started free flowing from Steve’s eyes. It was a fact that he’d understood well enough – had even listened to Bucky tell his parents that their friendship was what had saved him in the Helicarrier. But it hadn’t been correctly stated – that it had been the love between them that brought Bucky back from the darkness inside the Soldier’s mind. Steve sniffled, hard, as he spoke barely above a whisper. “Yes…”

“And after your flight from the authorities… you became lovers again?” Peggy spoke softly as she rest her head on Steve’s shoulder comfortingly.

“No.” Bucky’s voice came from the doorway of the living room, where he stood with his arms folded over his chest. Both Steve and Peggy jumped slightly – god only knew how long Bucky had been standing there. “After Siberia, I became his _husband_.”

A broken sob ripped from Steve’s throat as he looked away from both the brunettes. Peggy immediately turned to look at Bucky with wide eyes.

“It’s legal in the 21st century-“ Bucky nearly growled, attempting to defend himself and Steve against the look he thought meant that Peggy Carter was disgusted.

“No, James… that’s not why I’m looking at you like that… Oh, _James_…” She turned back to Steve and shook him less than gently. “You loved him enough to marry him for god’s sake!”

“Yes…”

Peggy paused for a moment as she stared at her husband. “And just what was your greatest fear during the war – after the moment it broke out. And don’t lie to me – don’t give me the patriotic ‘Captain America’ answer.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. It was another fact that he had never put voice to – not to anyone, not even himself, and yet it was the very thing that dictated his every action after Pearl Harbor. He swallowed tightly, and finally the words came tumbling out of his mouth. “Losing Bucky…”

Bucky clucked his tongue against the back of his teeth at the answer, rolling his eyes even as Peggy nodded her head. She’d already known what the answer was going to be – could sense it easily. Had always suspected.

“Then I suggest you go with him.”

Steve’s face shot up, looking at Peggy with wide, unbelieving eyes, even as Bucky’s breath hitched and caused him to cough lightly.

Peggy rose to her feet. She was not happy. She was not happy to be losing Steve again. But she understood the situation that the three of them were in. Time Travel or not, Steve was already married – and even if he hadn’t been, his heart was already given to another. Breathing slowly and calmly, Peggy pet Steve’s hair soothingly. “We can talk more about this tomorrow, but right now I think it’s only fair that the two of you retire – _together_.” Leaning down, Peggy kissed Steve’s crown once before stepping away from him and making her exit through the other door of the living room.

The two men were left staring at each other in shock.

After a moment, Bucky turned and walked back into the back hall, heading for the spare bedroom again.

Sighing softly, Steve looked at the floor, before shifting his position on the couch, and lying down, facing the back of the couch with his knees pulled up a little for him to fit. His mind was racing, and his thoughts were so loud that he didn’t hear Bucky’s second approach. Not until Steve felt those strong arms suddenly wrap around him, and pick him up, easy as pie. He gasped – clinging to Bucky as he was hefted into the air, as if he was still 5’4” and 95lbs of piss and vinegar, rather than 6’2” and 240lbs of muscle.

Bucky didn’t give him a chance to argue, instead turning on his heel and walking back to the spare bedroom for the third time that night. “You’re not sleepin’ on the couch, for fuck’s sake.”

Steve felt like a child; his face was burning as he clung to Bucky. “I can walk, ya know…”

“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that, pal. Ya flopped over on the couch instead’a followin’ me.”

“I… I thought you didn’t want me near you…”

“Yeah well, ya thought wrong. Just give it up, Steve.” Bucky pushed the bedroom door open and walked inside before unceremoniously dumping Steve onto the bed.

Steve snorted in surprise as he bounced on the mattress. Bucky immediately turned and walked back to the bedroom door, before closing it quietly and turning back to Steve. He leaned back against the door and watched Steve as the blond man pushed himself upright on the bed.

Steve studied his face for a moment, before glancing down. He picked at the blankets, trying to think of something to say to the other man – to his husband.

Bucky watched him with an emotionless look – the one he’d mastered as a kid – before finally speaking. “You know I’m not mad at you, right? I _was_, I was hurt for a long time… but I’m not mad. Look, Sweetheart…” he crossed the space between the door and the bed, falling to his knees at the foot of the mattress so he could cradle Steve’s jaw gently in his warm right hand. “Look at me, Sweetheart.” He nudged gently, until Steve lifted his eyes to meet Bucky’s.

Steve’s heart jumped in his chest – Bucky’s eyes were kind and warm – his aura peaceful, causing a rush of air to flood out of Steve’s lungs as he relaxed.

“There you are.” Bucky smiled softly, still holding his husband’s jaw gently; he caressed the peak of Steve’s cheekbone with the soft pad of his thumb as he kneeled in the slight V of Steve’s parted knees. “Listen to me, Sweetheart.” Bucky paused, making sure that the other man was focused on him. “I know that it’s been difficult – and I know I’ve been … mercurial… at best – but I need you to really, _really_, listen to me right now, if you never do again. Alright?”

Steve nodded gently as he lifted his hand and carefully laid it over Bucky’s, leaning into his touch. “I’m listening…”

“I need you to know that I have always loved you, and always will, no matter what you decide tomorrow.”

Steve closed his eyes slowly and turned his face so he could kiss Bucky’s palm. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.” Steve eased his hand off Bucky’s long enough that he could wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and drag him in closer. The last levy broke, and he started kissing along Bucky’s jaw tenderly and quickly. “Please don’t say I can’t go with you…”

Bucky’s brows shot up as hugged Steve back firmly. “If that’s what you really want, then of course you can come with me.”

Steve’s hand flew to Bucky’s jaw – he gripped his chin gently as he laid the pad of his thumb into the notch of the dimple and brought Bucky’s mouth to his own; kissing him sweetly and licking into his mouth desperately.

Bucky moaned lowly into the kiss as he set his hands onto Steve’s ribs, under his arms, and settled on his knees leaning up to keep kissing Steve. Steve’s hand carded through his dark locks and scratched lightly over his scalp – eliciting a soft groan of pleasure from Bucky. He eased back, settling his forehead against Steve’s as he panted softly with his eyes closed. Steve nuzzled Bucky’s nose as he continued to lightly scritch his husband’s scalp.

Bucky nuzzled Steve back gently, “I love you Baby…”

“I love you too, Bucky…” Steve pulled back long enough to kiss Bucky’s forehead.

Bucky slowly rose back to his feet, until he was standing over Steve, gently stroking his jaw sweetly. Steve wrapped his arms around him, and nuzzled Bucky’s bare abdomen for a moment. Bucky leaned down and kissed his crown, before pulling properly away. Moving around the far side of the bed, he slipped under the covers, and patted the empty side for Steve.

Steve turned and looked at Bucky just long enough to unbutton his shirt and trousers, shrugging his clothing off until he was in only his boxers. He crawled back up the mattress, before getting under the covers with Bucky. He burrowed in close, wrapping his arms loosely around his husband’s lower waist, and pulled him in close – sliding Bucky across the mattress making him laugh – as he nuzzled his chest. He quickly hazarded a soft kiss to the soft underside of Bucky’s jaw as Bucky reached and clicked off the lamp, before settling back down with his cheek on his lover’s clavicle. Bucky kissed Steve’s crown again, as he wrapped the other man up in his arms as the darkness of the room enveloped them.

In the morning, Peggy quietly eased the spare bedroom door open, just enough to peek inside. In the bed, both men were fast asleep, entangled with one another.

Steve, despite his size, looked small; folded up in Bucky’s arms and clinging to the older man as if he was his teddy bear. His golden head was tucked under Bucky’s jaw as he slept with his face buried in the warm stretch of muscle between Bucky’s neck and his metal shoulder. Bucky’s black Vibranium hand rest lightly on Steve’s waist just above his hip, while his right hand rested lightly on the pillow, still tenderly cradling Steve’s head.

Peggy had never, not even when he was small and sickly, seen her husband look so small. She’d never seen him willingly make himself smaller, not in the years that she had known him – because this wasn’t the same as balling himself up behind his shield to protect his whole body. This was wilfully putting himself in a place of submission and surrendering entirely to the man who was holding onto him. This was giving himself up completely, in the way that she had never witnessed.

It hurt to see it, if only because there had never existed that level of surrender and comfort with one another between the two of them. Steve had always been the protector and provider in their relationship, despite the fact that they treated each other as equals. Watching him sleep now in the arms of his oldest friend, her heart ached to think that for the last four years he had needed to be able to be out of control but protected and cared for – that she could have tried to give that to him if he’d only asked. She ached only because it slowly dawned on her just how bad he’d been hurting and needing the surrender that he’d felt – or perhaps known – that only Bucky could give him.

She understood that this was what both of those men needed most, and with a sad smile she quietly pulled the door closed again.

An hour later Steve and Bucky were sitting side by side on the train heading back to the Coffey Street station in Red Hook. All of Steve’s minimal possessions that they cared to take with him when they returned to the 21st century were packed with Bucky’s few minimal possessions that he’d picked up during his two week visit – all in a small leather suitcase. The shield was missing – they had made a promise to each other that they were done with missions – the moment they got home, they were officially retired from this life. The shield was, in turn, left for Peggy to use either as she saw fit, or to pass on at her discretion. Both half expected it to be delivered within a week of their return, having been left in Peggy’s will, in trust, until a certain date. It didn’t matter – the two of them could always use it as a sled in the winter.

Sitting side by side, they held hands – fingers entwined, but hidden from the public eye by the hems of their wool coats. Steve would be lying if he didn’t miss the more accepting nature of the future – he missed being able to hold hands with his husband in public – missed being able to rest his head on his shoulder, missed being able to kiss him with minimal attention. Hell, if it meant that he’d be able to put his head on Bucky’s shoulder right then, Steve almost wished that he was tiny again. He squeezed Bucky’s fingers tightly as he trembled. He was excited, and terrified – he’d never thought he’d have this chance.

“We’ll be there shortly, pal.” Bucky murmured softly, keeping the tone casual enough that they didn’t draw unnecessary attention.

When they disembarked, Steve quickly followed Bucky the short couple of blocks to his parents’ house, and only when they were on the porch and somewhat protected from the view of anyone passing by, did they wrap their arms around each other as Bucky knocked on the door.

It took a few moments, but Winnie pulled the door open, still in her dressing gown with her curls piled atop her head and held by the scarf. Seeing the two men again, she gasped happily and stepped out of the way to usher them inside. When they stepped in, she quickly closed the door and threw her arms around both of them, even as tears wanted to fall from her eyes. “I thought you’d already gone.”

Steve and Bucky both hugged her tightly, together. Bucky finally spoke when he eased back a little. “Not yet, Ma… we’re leaving tomorrow afternoon.” His eyes were glimmering as he smiled.

Winnie’s bottle green eyes grew wide, and she looked between the two men. She broke out into a bright smile as she laughed and hopped up and down excitedly. “Yes! My boys are back together!”

Bucky chuckled, but Steve laughed with a sound of sorrow – it should never have come to Winnie Barnes having to say that in the first place.

“Oh! No don’t cry or you’ll start me off!” Winnie gasped, grabbing Steve by his face and pulling him down to hug her again. “No, no tears. You’re both here now, and whatever happened, it’s sorted now. And we’re going to enjoy the time we have, alright?” she pulled Bucky back into her side as well – her son instantly burying his face into her hair as he held both his mother and husband close.

When Winnie finally pulled away again, she wiped her eyes slightly. “Your father left for work already, I’m sorry darling.”

Bucky shook his head easily. “It’s alright, Ma. We’ll see him at dinner.”

“Yes you will.” She just looked at him for a moment, studying the years etched into his face. “My sweet boy… the black circles under your eyes are gone.” Winnie started grinning, unable to help herself. “You look a hundred times better than you did yesterday afternoon, Sweetheart – and so do you, Steve. Don’t you ever do this to each other again, do you understand me?” Her voice turned harsh. “You’re not alright without each other – and you’re both too stupid to realize it.”

“Ma!” Bucky gasped. “I figured out how to Time Travel!”

“I never said you weren’t brilliant Darling – you should go back to school to finish your degree – but you are completely stupid when it comes to feelings. You put Steve ahead of yourself, you always have, and the trouble with that is that he’s also too stupid to know when he’s got the best thing in the world.”

“Mama Winnie!” Steve gasped, trying not to laugh at the mutual chastising he and his husband were receiving.

_Husband_. God, it was good to hear that word again when it related to Bucky.

“If you ever hurt each other like this again, I don’t care if I’ve been dead for a century, I will come down from the Heavens and beat you senseless – with your own metal arm! And I’m bringing Sarah Rogers with me!”

That was the final straw, the one that set both men off into laughter – laughing so hard they started tearing up and hanging on to each other as the stress melted off of their shoulders, setting them free.

Winnie watched them with the brightest smile.

Steve set the table for breakfast an hour later, as Bucky cooked the eggs and bacon for the rest of the family, while Winnie worked on a batch of latkes for a celebration of her boys being back together and going home together. Steve loved her latkes – always had – and Bucky made a mental note of it, to make them at home once in a while.

“Table’s set.” Steve smiled warmly. “Is there anything else I can do, Mama Winnie?”

Winnie turned to look at him over her shoulder from where she and her son shared space on the stove. “Steven Rogers, you’re a guest here, you’ve done plenty enough.”

Steve couldn’t help the grin that lit up his face. “Actually, Mama Winnie… I’m only Steve Rogers publicly… Legally… I’m Steve Barnes.”

Winnie’s brows furrowed for a moment, “You changed your na—Oh!” her eyes rounded and she whipped her head around to look at her son – who wore a tiny smile as he kept scrambling the eggs. “My boys got married?!” she almost shrieked in pure excitement. “That’s allowed in the future?!”

“Sure is, ma’am.” Steve beamed – before Winnie slapped him. “Ow!” His eyes widened in shock.

“That’s what you get for marryin’ my boy and leavin’ him for some dame!”

Bucky snorted loudly, not even trying to hide his amusement as he flipped the bacon in the skillet. “You shoulda seen that one comin’, pal.”

Steve rubbed his cheek where she’d struck him. “I really _am_ sorry, Mama Winnie… There’s no good reason for what I did… but… when we get home, I wanna renew our vows… if… if Buck’ll still have-“

“Stop talkin’, idiot.” Bucky rolled his eyes.

“No.” Winnie shook her head resolutely. “No, you’re not waiting till you get home. I don’t care what the laws are here, and I don’t care that we can’t get a priest or a rabbi to oversee it, you’re doing it here, tonight so we can all witness it. You can be handfasted!”

“Ma…” Bucky was blushing. “I know you’re happy an’ all, but don’t you think-“

“James Buchanan Barnes.” Winnie warned, full-naming him and Steve snorted slightly off to the side. “You are going to handfast with Steven tonight, so your father, sister, brother-in-law, and I can be there for the wedding we won’t otherwise get to see.”

Bucky’s shoulders slumped at that realization. “Of course Ma, I’m sorry.”

“Good boy.” She pet and ruffled his hair gently as she turned off the burner under the pan she’d been using to fry the latkes, having finished the batch.

When Becca saw her brother that morning, she screeched in excitement, and threw her arms around his neck – hugging him as tightly as she could manage given her massive belly. He kissed her temple and nuzzled her hair in greeting.

“What are you doing back?” Becca finally pulled herself out of her big brother’s arms.

“We’re not leavin’ till tomorrow, so… we thought we’d spend today with all of you again.” Bucky settled his hand gently on her pregnant belly – the baby kicked his flesh hand gently. “You really are close, ain’t ya?” He looked up into her eyes, and Becca smiled back brightly.

“Yeah… yeah I am Buck…” She turned and spotted Steve, and her smile grew as she turned back to her brother. “Are you to… _okay_ now?”

Blushing a soft pink tone, Bucky nodded. “Actually… about that… we’re going to have a handfasting ceremony tonight and –“

Becca shrieked in excitement before he could even finish his sentence. Bucky cringed slightly at the volume.

“And I was… wonderin’… if you’d be my best man – best lady?? …. Bridesmaid?? Groomsmaid??” His dark brows furrowed as he trailed off thinking about the best title for the position he was asking her to fill.

Becca snorted her laughter. “I’d be honored to be your best man, you idiot.”

Brian Proctor offered to be Steve’s best man; Steve greatly accepted, since the only person present that he’d normally want to ask something so important, was out of the question. You couldn’t ask your groom to be your best man – could you? And Winnie and George Barnes were out of the question, as they were the giving away Steve and Bucky respectively. George was also going to lead the vows for them – this was decided when George happened to come home for lunch and greeted both boys with tight hugs. He’d agreed without much convincing – happy as long as both his son and his wife was happy. It might not have been the wedding he’d originally envisioned when his son was a little boy, but whatever made Bucky happy – that’s what mattered. That’s all that mattered now that they were lucky enough to know that he was alive.

After lunch, while Becca was helping Bucky get ready, and decorating the sitting room of their childhood home with paper flowers she’d been folding for the last few hours, Winnie grabbed Steve and gently pulled him aside. Confused, he followed her wordlessly as she led him into her bedroom. He paused in the door, having better manners than to just step into another person’s bedroom without permission, but Winnie turned and looked at him. “Steven, that’s sweet, but come in, please.”

Nodding, Steve stepped inside awkwardly, his eyes darting around until they fell over the 1916 wedding photo of Winnie and George – his eyes widened slightly. Winnie caught him looking at the photo and smirked slightly. “What you’re thinking… the answer is _yes_. Bucky was technically at the wedding as well.” She laughed softly but ushered him towards her jewellery box.

“When we heard that both Bucky and you had been killed in action… well, it was incredibly hard for us. George and I kept paying for your apartment for a few more months, but eventually we went in to clean it out.”

Steve nodded his head gently. “I know, Mama Winnie. Thank you.”

She waved him off gently, “Don’t thank me yet. We donated a lot of what was in there, but some things were kept. I have your sketchbooks, for one thing, and I’ll package them up for you before you leave if you like, but that’s not why I brought you in here.” Winnie turned back to her jewellery box and slowly opened it – the hinged creaked softly. “I don’t know why I kept these, but now I’m happy that I did.” She retrieved something from the box, and turned to Steve, gesturing that he should hold his hand out.

Steve’s brows furrowed, not sure what he should expect. Still, he held his hand out, palm up, obediently. Winnie pressed something cool into his hand, and leaned down, kissing her hand and his in one gentle move, before she released the objects and stepped aside. When Steve looked into his hand, his heart leaped into his throat.

Waiting in the palm of his hand, were two golden wedding bands with just the faintest engraved patterning around the edges. His parents’ wedding rings. His breath caught in his throat, and his eyes watered as he looked at the rings – two perfectly matched thin bands, neither masculine nor feminine. They’d been made as twins, equals, in the way that Sarah and Joseph, like Winnie and George – like Becca and Brian – like Steve and Bucky – looked at each other. He just kept staring at them in awe.

He had thought he would never see them again – they were the one of the very last belongings of his mother that had been left before the war; he and Bucky, though it had taken some years, had eventually cleared out most of Sarah’s belongings. Steve swallowed tightly. “Thank… thank you, Mama Winnie…”

“They’re yours Darling.” She cupped his cheek tenderly. “You deserve to have them back. I know you probably have your own set of rings at home, but I thought… maybe for tonight you’d like to wear these.”

Steve couldn’t speak, so he just pulled the woman close and hugged her.

“Oh Stevie… I know it hurts, I know. I still miss her every day too, Darling.” Winnie rubbed his back lovingly. “But today is a happy day, okay? I know it hurts to be doing this without her, but I promise you that Sarah and Joseph are with you, always. And they are going to be there for your wedding, and they’ll be so proud of you – they already are.” Steve squeezed her a little harder.

When Steve came back down the stairs, he flew into Bucky’s arms at the bottom – giving the other man no warning before he kissed him soundly on the lips. Bucky, who had been in the middle of a sentence, fell silent as his eyes widened. But, he wrapped his arms around Steve, and cradled the back of his head as he tenderly kissed him back. When he finally eased away, he stroked his fingers through Steve’s hair. “You alright, pal?”

Steve, smiling but watery eyed, nodded his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been better… not really. Not like this. Not with so much love surrounding me, and so much hope ahead of us.”

“So you’re alright?” Bucky nuzzled his cheek gently.

“So alright…” Steve lifted his hand and opened his palm to show Bucky the rings.

Bucky looked at them for a moment before it dawned on him. “Are those your parents’?”

Steve nodded his head. “Your Ma kept them when they cleared out our old apartment…”

“Oh, Stevie, that’s great!” Bucky beamed as he kissed Steve’s forehead just beneath his hairline.

“Buck… I know it’s… maybe askin’ a lot. But, will you wear one of these rings tonight?” Steve swallowed tightly as he worried his lip.

“Nah, punk. I won’t wear it tonight – I’ll wear it as long as you want me to… I’ll wear it like the Russians do, on the right side, so I don’t break the band with my metal finger.”

Steve immediately crashed his mouth against Bucky’s again in another desperate and heartfelt kiss.

At seven in the evening, the entire Barnes family, Steve included, gathered in the sitting room. Dinner was relegated to wait till after the handfasting.

They were all dressed in their best clothing – Steve resulted in borrowing some of the clothing that Bucky had bought for himself during his stay with Steve and Peggy, since he’d only taken the clothing on his back when they left the house that morning. He hadn’t thought he would need something else until they got back to 2023. He blushed a little, wondering if wearing his groom’s clothing was a bad omen. Winnie had laughed and told him “It counts as your something borrowed!”

Winnie Barnes stood to the right, along with Brian and Steve, while Becca and Bucky stood to the left. In front of them, George stood with four ribbons in hand and beaming at them.

“Welcome, everyone. We are gathered her today to witness the union of these two souls.” George started up, even though his throat was already starting to tighten with emotion as he smiled. “First, I must ask those present if it is their wish to give these two away. I, George Bailey Barnes, do consent and gladly give my son, James Buchanan Barnes, into this union.” He reached and lifted Bucky’s right hand as he turned his eyes from his beaming son, to Steve. “Who gives this man into the union?”

Everyone giggled a little, at the sheer ridiculousness of asking the question. But it was the proper thing to do, and it felt right.

Winnie stepped forward, taking Steve’s hand as she spoke up. “I, Winnifred Alexandra Barnes, do consent and gladly give Steven Grant Rogers, for his mother Sarah Rogers, into this union.”

The two men turned to each other, eyes already a little wet at the emotional weight of what this secret ceremony actually meant. Steve sniffled softly at Winnie’s words – his heart swelling in his chest – as George laid Bucky’s hand over his own which Winnie held out for him.

Bucky smiled softly back at Steve – the same reassuring expression that he’d worn since they met as children. The same sweet smile that always soothed Steve’s fraying edges and told him _‘you’re safe now, you’re okay. I’ll protect you, I’ll be here for you. I promise.’_ And Steve relaxed. This was the wedding they should have had back when Bucky had originally proposed to him the night before he deployed. But they’d never had the chance. At least all the choices that had led them both back to 1954 meant that they had the chance now. Steve smiled back at his beloved, as they subtly squeezed each other’s hands.

“James, Steven, I bid you look into each other’s eyes.” George nudged them gently, and cerulean and silver eyes met, holding true. George continued on. “These are the hands that will love and support you.” He laid one hand on top of their layered hands. “These are the hands that will carry you when you fall.” He placed his other hand on the bottom of theirs, so that they were clasped between his. “Will you honour and respect one another, and seek to never break that honour?” George studied their faces, as Bucky and Steve had eyes only for each other.

They spoke in unison, whether by intention or pure instinct – smiling a little broader when the words came from their mouths. “We will.”

George eased his hands off the men’s and retrieved the first of the ribbons laid over his forearm. He draped it over their united hands gently. “And so the first binding is made. Will you share each other’s pain and seek to ease it?”

“We will.” They were smiling brightly at each other now, no hesitation between them.

Steve thought back to Peggy’s words the night before, and realized she was right. He did look at Bucky like he was the sun – if only because he radiated light and warmth. Grinning, he could hardly wait for the ritual to be over, so he could kiss his husband for the first time all over again.

George laid the second ribbon over their clasped hands. “And so the binding is made. Will you share the burdens of each other so that your spirits may grow in this union?”

“We will.”

Bucky was beaming at Steve – they were doing it right this time. Not a rushed wedding in a Wakandan tertiary court. This was the wedding suited to them – small, quiet – secret even – but it matched their families and their shared, though different, beliefs.

The third ribbon was laid over their hands. “And so the binding is made. Will you share each other’s laughter, and look for the brightness in life and the positive in each other?”

“We will.”

The final ribbon was laid over their hands, as George nodded his head “And so the binding is made.” He, Winnie, Becca, and Brian stepped forward as Bucky and Steve kept lovingly gazing into each other’s eyes. Together, the four of them tied the ribbons together, uniting the two men physically and symbolically.

When they stepped back, George spoke up once again. “Steven and James, as your hands are bound together now, so your lives and spirits are woven together in this union of love and trust. Above you are the stars, and below you the earth. Like the stars your love should shine and be a constant source of light in the darkness, and like the earth, a firm foundation from which you both shall grow. Now, whoever has the rings, please step forward.”

Brian stepped up, grinning, as he held the twin golden wedding bands in the palm of his hand.

“Steven, pick up the ring and speak your heart.”

Steve swallowed tightly with emotion, as he picked up the first of the two golden bands. “James… _Bucky_…” he laughed a little, still not used to calling the man by his proper name. He’d only ever been Bucky since they day they’d met. “I’ve known you almost my entire life; you’re the kind-hearted soul that saw a shrimpy kid, who was too stupid to back down, gettin’ the tar beat out of him and threw yourself into the fray to save ‘im. Even if we both got tossed into that dumpster.” He paused, as the group all laughed softly. “We’ve been practically inseparable since that day – barring the stupid choice I made – you’ve been my greatest friend – the best friend a guy could ever ask for – for nearly a full hundred years… But… I think I’ve been in love with you since before I was born. I don’t know how to explain it, but I think I’ve always loved you – it was just a matter of time before I got to actually meet you. I know we’ve been dealt some real heavy blows, and it’s taken a long time for us to be alright again, but Bucky, you’re the North Star – I will follow you wherever you go. I will never stop searching for you until I find you, every single time. You’re my lucky star, my sunlight, the love of my life. And I’m never going to let go of you again. So, with this ring, I thee wed.” Swallowing tightly, though his voice had started to tremble by the end, Steve lifted Bucky’s right hand and slowly slid the gold ring onto Bucky’s ring finger.

When Steve finally looked up, the tears were running down Bucky’s cheeks as he smiled. “Oh Stevie…” He breathed softly as he took the second ring from Brian’s waiting palm. “Stevie, Sweetheart, when we first met you threw a shoe at my face.” He deadpanned, making the small group laugh even through their heartfelt tears. “And you gave me the nickname that everyone came to know me by, simply because you thought ‘James’ was too ordinary. And you were right – I haven’t been ordinary since that day; you’ve filled my life with happiness and friendship. You’ve been my rock when I needed it, and I hope that I have been the same for you. I have stood by you in the worst of scenarios, and I will continue to, because I love you – because I have loved you since before birth as well. I love you with everything I’ve got – even though I’m pretty damaged now. I love you with my soul – because that’s why I’ve loved you since before we were born – you are the other half of my soul, Stevie. Created from the same material, united in the cosmos – made from the same stardust. We’ve had our fair share of heavy blows, you’re right. But Sweetheart, I would relive everyone one of those days countless times as long as it meant that I would always find my way back to you. You’re my Stevie, my pal, my punk, my Sweetheart, my husband – my forever. I will never again let go of you. So,” Bucky lifted Steve’s left hand gently. “With this ring, I thee wed.” the gold band slid into place on Steve’s hand easily.

They were beaming at each other, hands entwined, when George finally spoke. “Then by the blessings you have placed upon me, I pronounce you husband and husband. You may now kiss.” He stepped back ever so slightly, to give the men a bit of room.

The hands that were still loosely bound together, squeezed each other gently, as Bucky settled his cool, undisguised, left hand onto the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him in close. Steve went without fuss, wrapping his free arm around Bucky’s waist and bringing him, too, closer as they met in a sweet, chaste, kiss.

The cheer went up in the room, as their family laughed and clapped with delight and joy.

When they parted from their sweet kiss, Steve rested his forehead against Bucky’s, slowly opening his eyes so he could gaze into his husband’s. “I love you, Bucky.”

“I love you too, Sweetheart. Now and always.”

Steve brought their bound and entwined hands up to his face – softly brushing his lips over Bucky’s knuckles before Winnie rolled her eyes and stepped forward. “Alright, alright. Let’s get the two of you untied and we can eat!”

Bucky chuckled softly as Steve turned enough to let Winnie start untying the ribbons around their wrists, as he laid his head down on Bucky’s shoulder.

“I’ll check on the roast chicken, Pumpkin!” George hummed as he stepped around his son and his new husband, heading into the kitchen to help his own wife with whatever he could.

Dinner was rosemary roasted chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and a mandarin and fruit jello mould – which to be honest neither of the men were too fond of, but the gesture of making the gelatin dessert was one of love, so it was easily let go.

They danced together, after dinner, in the sitting room after they moved the furniture mostly out of the way. Their first dance was to the only song that they had ever promised completely to one another – one that matched their vows – You Are My Lucky Star. The three couples danced together for a few hours – trading partners every once in a while before finding themselves back with their true north- their own beloved spouse.

Steve did not want to say goodbye to the Barneses the following day, but he would be lying if he wasn’t suddenly looking forward to all the days left ahead of him – to the future, and more importantly to the future with Bucky.

He would also be lying if he said that he wasn’t looking forward to getting Bucky into their bed and making love with him for the first time in nearly ten years. His heart thumped and his blood pounded in his veins at the thought alone.

Winnie, and George for good measure, smirked at the couple by the end of the night. Steve flushed bright red, but Bucky smiled softly – a cool and collected gesture. The mark of a spy.

When they’d finally retired to Bucky’s old room, Steve sat on the bed, unable to stop smiling as he watched Bucky unbutton his shirt and shrug out his clothing down to his boxers. He raked his eyes up and down the length of Bucky’s body – all lean but dense muscle. Bucky’s back was to him, as he combed his fingers through his hair, working out the Brylcreem styling. His wedding band flashed in the dim light that shone in through the window with a tangerine tone from the streetlamps outside.

Steve bit his lip as he watched the other man finally turn away from the mirror and towards him. He smiled softly, lip still between his teeth as his eyes visibly roved up and down his husband – pausing briefly on the front of his boxers, before returning his cerulean eyes to Bucky’s face.

Bucky snorted a little, a tiny laugh, as he crawled up his side of the bed, to get under the covers for the night.

Steve’s brows shot up – he’d been expecting Bucky to make a move on him given his obvious interest – and it was their wedding night. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had sex in this room before – as quiet as they’d needed to be.

Bucky settled onto the mattress, and nudged Steve’s thigh gently with his foot as he got comfortable. “Come on, get undressed.” He hummed as he turned onto his right hip.

Still worrying his lip, Steve rose to his feet, and reached to unbutton the shirt he’d borrowed from Bucky – only to pause as he realized the chance this gave him. He grinned a little mischievously, gazing down at his husband, as he slowly started popping the buttons open.

Bucky quirked a brow as he watched. “Really, punk?”

Steve kept grinning as he shrugged the shirt off and set it aside before dropping his hands to unfasten his belt. He slid the leather free and dropped it slowly to the floor, before popping the buttons on his trousers and slowly sliding down the zipper – his eyes locked with Bucky’s.

Bucky pushed himself up in the bed, watching him as Steve got himself undressed down to the boxers. “God, Baby…” he exhaled softly.

Steve’s heart was racing a little, already, as he looked at his husband. He swallowed tightly and got back onto the bed – immediately shifting himself up the bed till he was level with Bucky. Wrapping his arms around Bucky’s ribs, under his arms, Steve pulled him and Bucky went willingly as they met in yet another kiss; a soft brush of lips as Bucky cradled Steve in his arms. Slowly but excitedly, Steve lapped small kitten licks over the seam of Bucky’s lips, groaning in pleasure when the man opened his mouth unhurriedly for him. Steve groaned softly as he felt Bucky’s tongue swirl around his mouth. Steve shifted closer, slipping his leg between Bucky’s thighs as he sucked on his tongue. When they finally pulled back to catch their breath, Steve settled his chin on Bucky’s clavicle – looking up at him in awe as the tangerine light from the windows shone in a halo around the edges of his dark curls. Still panting, Steve leaned in, gently nuzzling under Bucky’s jaw, and pressed a couple of small and sweet kisses over his throat – making Bucky’s silver eyes flutter shut with a soft exhale.

“Stevie, Honey…” holding Steve close, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other hand cradling his jaw, Bucky laid back slowly and brought Steve with him.

Steve’s free hand (the arm that wasn’t wrapped around Bucky’s ribs) slowly trailed down the valley between Bucky’s pectorals. He brushed his fingers through the small patch of dark hair before tracing his touch slowly outward; stroking his thumb over Bucky’s already peaked nipple as he licked the curve of his jaw – scraping his teeth softly over the miniscule stubble on Bucky’s face. Beneath him, Buck groaned softly as his hips shifted aimlessly on the mattress top. He knotted his fingers in Steve’s hair as he tilted his head back, opening up the long column of his neck for the other man. Steve started sucking small kisses down the tendons of Bucky’s neck, until he reached the hollow at the base, where his tongue darted out and swirled against his husband’s olive-toned flesh. His hand slowly moved back to the other side, until he was tenderly rubbing his thumb against Bucky’s other nipple.

Tilting his head to the other side, Steve started back up the other tendon in Bucky’s neck with butterfly kisses, until he found the pulse thrumming beneath his lips. He nosed at the soft skin just under Bucky’s jaw gently as he laved the flat of his tongue over Bucky’s beating pulse. The entire time, his hand was slowly stroking down over Bucky’s abdomen – following the valley between his firm abdominals until his fingertips brushed through the narrow line of dark hair that led down into Bucky’s cotton boxers. He stroked his fingers against the course hair for a moment as he scraped his teeth over Bucky’s pulse. But, as he focused his attention onto sucking steadily on Bucky’s beating pulse point, his hand slipped down; he cupped Bucky’s already half-hard erection in the warm palm of his hand as he worked on the dark purple mark already blooming across his neck.

Bucky gasped – his breath catching briefly in his throat before he moaned soft and low. He knew they had to be quiet, but his hips were already writhing. He tightened his grasp in Steve’s hair and dragged him back away from his neck, even as his husband’s large hand kept calmly rubbing him through the thin cotton. He groaned softly as he automatically ground himself back against Steve’s skilled palm.

Steve took the chance; easing one leg over Bucky’s lap until he was straddling the other man. Shifting closer, Steve leaned in until his lips were almost against the shell of Bucky’s ear. His hand continued to gently massage Bucky’s thickening cock, even as he unconsciously ground his own erection against the warm crease of Bucky’s thigh through the thin layers of cotton. “Buck…” Steve panted softly into Bucky’s ear. “God you don’t know how bad I’ve wanted this. How hard it’s been all week…” his tongue darted out and he licked Bucky’s ear softly. “Wakin’ up every day either with your hard cock pressed against my ass, or mine pressin’ into the heat of your thigh… wanted to give in, so bad Buck…” He nuzzled against Bucky’s trapezius.

“Christ, Baby…” Bucky’s spine arched – automatically elevating his hips and lifting Steve along with them. His hands slid down to Steve’s hips, and he gripped softly as he traced his mismatched thumbs over his iliac crests, before he popped the buttons on the waistband of Steve’s boxers open. Steve gasped slightly, but sat up properly long enough to hurriedly drag the underwear off of his legs, before doing the same for Bucky.

Bucky pulled him closer, touching his forehead to Steve’s and keeping direct eye contact with him as he lifted his right hand. Eyes never leaving Steve’s face, his pink tongue darted out and he licked a slow stripe over his palm, wetting it as Steve watched nearly mesmerized. Bucky grinned teasingly as he slowly lowered his hand and wrapped it around Steve’s erect cock. The blond snorted slightly in surprise, and Bucky unhurriedly started to stroke him from root to tip and back again. Steve dipped his chin to look down, watching Bucky’s hand in awe – emotions welling as he saw the thin gold band on his husband’s finger. Bucky’s mouth dipped into an open-mouthed grin as he panted softly. His voice was low, and warm like whisky. “Feel good, Baby?”

Steve panted, nodding faintly, as he braced his hands against Bucky’s shoulders and sat up just enough to bury his face into Bucky’s curls. He panted, breathing in deep the familiar scent of the Brylcreem. He gently framed Bucky’s neck with one hand, as the other stroked up and down the back of his nape, between Bucky’s hairline and the top of his shoulders. His hips were rolling out of his control, slowly thrusting himself into Bucky’s hand without his intention.

Bucky chuckled lowly into Steve’s chest. “Yeah, you’re feelin’ good, Baby.” He started kissing softly up Steve’s throat; latching onto that tender spot just under his ear and sucking softly.

“Buck…” Steve half sobbed as he felt Bucky’s other hand press lightly against the small of his back, before he realized he was being lowered down onto the mattress. He held his husband close, carding his hand through Bucky’s dark curls and tugging lightly as he wrapped his thighs around Bucky’s hips.

“How do ya want me, Sweetheart?” Bucky rumbled softly near Steve’s ear.

Steve shook his head gently, both hands now raking through Bucky’s hair and scratching at his scalp – making Bucky shiver and moan softly in pleasure the way he always had. “Just want you…”

Bucky pushed himself up gently, supporting his weight with his hands on the bed. He smiled down at Steve sweetly. “That really all ya want?” he brushed his lips against Steve’s teasingly.

Steve held Bucky’s head still, with his hands knotted in his hair, looking into his husband’s eyes as well as he could in the lowlight. “Yes… any way, Buck.” If nothing else, he was enjoying just the weight of Bucky’s dense musculature weighing him down on the bed. Steve rolled his hips up against Bucky’s, making the other man gasp slightly when their swollen cocks grazed each other.

The thin sheen of sweat was already rising on them, a combination of excitement and the coal furnace working in the basement of the Barnes’ house. Steve was glad that his body was no longer so small and sickly – that he no longer was cold even in heat like this. He was just glad that his skin was no longer frigid to the touch, for Bucky’s sake – no cold toes on the back of his thighs, no freezing fingers raking down his chest and gripping his hips.

Bucky crowded him in a little closer, and Steve exhaled slowly, relaxing as Bucky intentionally made him feel small again, without the negative aspects that came with his pre-serum body. Steve had forgotten just how good it felt to have Bucky crowding into his personal space like that – being the immovable wall of muscle and heat that never felt like anything than pure safety. Absentmindedly, Steve realize that that was exactly why he’d slept so well since he started sharing a bed with his friend over again – it was the type of surrender that Steve needed – to no longer be fully in control. To just trust his safety to his husband.

And there was nowhere safer than where he was currently – pressed into the old mattress and caged by Bucky’s body as their naked flesh touched.

Steve shuddered as he buried his face into the warm crook of Bucky’s neck. “God, I could come just like this…”

Bucky snorted, trying not to laugh at the sudden admission. “What? But I’ve barely touched you, Baby.”

Steve flushed a bright cerise colour, even if it was lost in the darkness. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Aw, Baby… did you miss me?” Bucky purred lowly in Steve’s ear as he stroked his hand up and down his husband’s side – eliciting another shiver from Steve, as Steve knew it was Bucky’s right hand – the one wearing his wedding ring. It was that knowledge that made it better.

“So, so much…” Steve shuddered as he lifted his hips to grind himself against Bucky.

Bucky touched his forehead to Steve’s softly, “I’ve got you, I’m right here Sweetheart.” He settled his right hand on Steve’s hip, gently pulling him up a little more, until their hips slotted fully together. He panted softly as a little pleasured gasp left Steve. Tilting his head to the side, Bucky nuzzled Steve’s cheek gently. His words came with a soft, warm, puff of breath against Steve’s ear. “How do you want me, Baby?”

Another shiver ran down Steve’s spine, causing him to moan quietly as he pulled him closer and tightened his grip on Bucky’s broad back. He sighed softly in pleasure. “Anyway, hunny, just want _you_.” He nuzzled Bucky’s jaw softly. “Please… please sweetheart.”

Bucky pressed a little closer, his warm right hand moved slowly down Steve’s naked torso, until his fingers brushed through the thatch of soft auburn curls at the base of his husband’s straining erection again. He turned his wrist softly, and slowly slipped his hand between Steve’s heated thighs. Touching his fingertips against Steve’s perineum, he unhurriedly stroked them back again over the velvety swell of his balls, making the man hiccup and whimper quietly as he bit his lip to keep the Barnes family from hearing them. “Like this, Baby?” Bucky purred lowly as he trailed his finger leisurely over the wet tip of Steve’s cock.

“Baby…” Steve squirmed, and slid his hands down Bucky’s back, and finally reaching his buttocks, squeezed firmly.

“Then tell me what you want, Baby.” Bucky teased as he swirled his finger teasingly around Steve’s crown.

Steve chewed his lip as he focused his attention on Bucky’s easy movements – they weren’t enough and the heat was pooling warmly in his groin – not enough. “Fuck me…” he breathed softly. “Please, Bucky… I _need _you; it’s been so long.” The flood gate was open, and he wasn’t sure that he could stop talking even if he tried. “I need you, I need you moving inside me. I want to taste the salt of your-“

Bucky gasped softly, squeezing Steve’s aching cock softly. “Steeeve…” he groaned. “Hunny, ya gotta shush…”

Steve dug his nails into the swell of Bucky’s buttocks, and groaned again at the feeling of the dense muscle under his hands as Bucky’s hand started slowly pumping his cock again. “Bucky, please!”

“Baby, I don’t even know if we got any slick,” Bucky murmured softly as he swiped his thumb over Steve’s slit on the upstroke.

Steve groaned and motioned towards the night stand, where a small glass bottle of Vaseline was sitting towards the back.

Bucky followed the motion, and his brows furrowed a little. He knew that the bottle hadn’t been there when they were sleeping there the morning before, and it looked new. Bucky he knew that neither he nor Steve had had time to run out and buy it that day, not with their wedding planning. In fact the only one that had been out that day, had been George, who had brought home the chicken for dinner when he came from work, after Winnie called to tell him the good news – Bucky’s stomach jumped slightly, as it dawned on him that his _father_ must have picked up the jar of slick for them. He shuddered, and tried to pretend that wasn’t a fact, as he reached out and picked up the jar. He looked up before he opened it. “You’re sure, Baby Doll?”

“Yes, Baby, _yes_.” Steve shifted under him, causing his erection to rub against Bucky’s heavy cock as it hung between his thighs.

Bucky groaned softly at the stimulation to his hard flesh, but he pushed it aside as best he could, to open the jar. He dipped his fingers into the slick and tossed the bottle aside as he curled his fist around the scoop of Vaseline, to warm it with his skin. Steve watched him, practically with hearts in his eyes, as Bucky worked the warming fluid between his fingers. He pulled Bucky down for a quick kiss, and hummed into his mouth.

Bucky grinned against the kiss, “Someone’s impatient.” He teased.

“Ten years, Sweetheart… ten long years.”

“You know, ya could’a asked Pegs to do this for ya.” Bucky teased, but he _did _truly believe that if Steve had just _asked _for that type of stimulation, that Peggy would have given it to him.

Steve glared half-heartedly. “Right, gonna ask my wife to play with my a-“ He gasped as Bucky quickly stroked a wet fingertip over his sensitive hole.

Bucky smiled smugly, and kissed his husband slowly, full of love, as he leisurely massaged the tight ring of muscle. Steve pushed back gently against Bucky’s finger, increasing the pressure of his fingers on his entrance. Bucky groaned softly, and slowly kept rubbing – testing and teasing as he pressed the tip of the first finger in slowly.

Steve whimpered slightly as Bucky kissed him once more; his warm, plush, lips a distraction to the slight burn at the intrusion of his finger.

Bucky took it slowly, gently and unhurriedly opening Steve one finger – one knuckle – at a time until the man was a writhing mess beneath his ministrations.

Steve’s hands lifted and raked through Bucky’s thick, dark, hair as one kiss turned into two, and two into five. He lost himself into the taste of Bucky on his tongue and the feeling of his husband’s fingers working him open. His body ached slightly – the intrusion foreign again after so long without his husband’s hands. But, it was a good ache, one that had had no outlet until tonight. He tightened his legs around Bucky’s hips as he moaned melodically into Bucky’s kiss.

Bucky twisted his wrist slightly and suddenly his fingertips found the spot inside of Steve that made him suddenly gasp and shake. He laughed softly as Steve jolted out of their kiss and tightened his hands in Bucky’s hair. He just kept grinning in that smug, self-satisfied, way as he focused his attention on that spot – massaging his fingertips in gentle, counter-clockwise, circles over it.

Steve threw his head back against the pillows again, feet scrambling on the bed and legs moving, as the pressure of Bucky’s fingertips increased against his prostate – eliciting an unbidden little whine from in his throat as liquid heat flowed and burned in a pool in his groin. He squeezed Bucky’s hair tighter, pulling on his husband’s scalp harder than he had up to that point. Buck squeezed his eyes shut in answer, and hissed softly, but didn’t stop his ministrations – wanting Steve to feel good. Soon enough, Steve’s grip lightened up, and he sagged slightly as he focused on keeping himself quiet. Bucky’s body was lying over him, pinning him down under the heavy, warm, weight as he worked that spot inside. Steve rolled his hips, stroked his erection against the sweat-slicked crease between Bucky’s thigh and groin.

“Buck… please.” He pleaded again, wanting nothing more than to be finally physically joined with his husband again.

“You’re doin’ so good, Baby. So good.” Bucky nuzzled his jaw and ear gently, and Steve felt his heart flutter happily at the praise. Bucky scissored his fingers slowly and gently, working Steve a little more open, wanting to know in no uncertain terms that Steve was ready and wouldn’t feel any true pain at their joining. “Think you’re ready, Baby?”

Steve nodded, panting softly. “Yeah, Buck. God, please… I can’t take it any more. Please, before I throw ya down and ride ya as hard as I can.” He panted and smirked slightly as he scratched at Bucky’s scalp.

Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut in pleasure, and he moaned softly at the feeling of Steve’s nails on his scalp – even leaned into it slightly as he withdrew his fingers from inside of his husband. Steve groaned, unintentionally, at the loss. Bucky’s eyes opened halfway, and he peered down at the other man with darkened silver irises. “When we’re at home, yeah ya can do that. But I’d rather not smash the wall with the bed frame when my sister’s room is on the other side.” He chuckled as he raised up onto his knees, long enough to pick up the Vaseline again, and dip his fingers back into it and carved out a portion. Tossing the jar onto another part of the bed again, he stroked the slick up and down his so far neglected, throbbing and aching, erection. He shuddered at the feeling.

“Please…” Steve murmured softly. “Please, need ya so bad I can practically taste it.” He swallowed tightly, eyes closed, as he rest his forehead against Bucky’s.

“Shh… I’ve got ya, Sweetheart.” Bucky lifted his clean hand and cupped Steve’s jaw gently as he pressed his forehead back gently. Shifting his hips forward, he touched the blunt head of his erection to Steve’s slickened opening – making his husband gasp softly and tighten his grip on him. Eyes gently closed, Bucky’s lips found Steve’s without trouble – drawn as if to a magnet. He kissed him tenderly, with only soft lips as he eased his hips forward slowly.

Steve sighed softly against Bucky’s mouth as he felt the head of his husband’s cock push passed and breech the ring of muscle at his entrance. He shivered with pure pleasure as his lover slid further into him, inch by inch, making his nerves tingle slightly and sing. The feeling of Bucky’s length filling him made his breath come in soft little panted gasps as his own cock throbbed with pleasure. He pulled back from the kiss, just long enough to whimper in awe at the gentle, dull, ache. “I love you…I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love-“

Bucky chuckled slightly, though it was strained as he forced himself not to move and thrust too fast – to let his sweetheart get accustomed to his girth within him. Bucky kissed his husband again, interrupting the uncontrolled litany of love. He settled closer, putting both elbows onto the mattress by Steve’s ribs, as the man wrapped his arms around his shoulders and held him firmly close. The shift in position allowed Bucky to lie properly against Steve – touching from chest to groin, meaning Steve’s aching, neglected, cock was finally pressed between the two of them as Bucky wiggled his hips – like a cat about to pounce- getting more comfortable in their coupling. The movement ground his erection against Steve’s inner walls, making him jerk and moan – pulling back from the kiss again. His back arched, and he tightened his grip on Bucky’s shoulders.

Steve couldn’t help but start to lick his way into Bucky’s mouth – relishing in the feeling of Bucky’s warm hips and upper thighs pressed against the swell of his buttocks; his husband’s heat buried deep inside of him as he adjusted to the feeling of being so full. He pulled back, only far enough to end the kiss, though their lips were still touching. Opening his eyes, Steve lifted his gaze up to Bucky’s eyes – seeking out the grey irises in the dark. Their foreheads were still touching. “Please…” He whispered, lips sweetly brushing against the plush swell of Bucky’s.

Bucky ground his hips back and forth, side to side, again as he kissed Steve again, making sure the other man was accustomed to the feeling of him inside. When Steve moaned softly and nipped at Bucky’s lip, he was satisfied. Finally, he gave into the instinct to move; his thrusts started off slow – a deliberately teasing drag- until Steve touched his lips to Bucky’s ear and begged barely above a whisper, “_Please,_ hubby...”

Bucky growled softly and dropped his face into the crook of Steve’s neck as his hips picked up the pace. Above his head, Steve keened and quickly clapped his hand over his mouth so Bucky’s family didn’t hear them. He snorted softly, trying to breath too quickly through his nose as he suddenly felt Bucky’s warm, wet, tongue licking the tendons in his neck. Pulling his hand away from his mouth, Steve let out a little whimper as he held onto Bucky’s mismatched shoulders. Bucky’s pace was picking up – the thrusts quicker and harder. Steve automatically started lifting his hips in harmony with Bucky’s movements – thrusting himself back against his husband as the man’s movements also forcibly rubbed his taut abdomen over Steve’s cock – already so hard and sensitive that each movement turned his whimpers into louder and louder keens. The feeling of the fine but coarse hair on Bucky’s lower abdomen rasping against his flushed skin made him feel like he was already losing control.

The mattress was creaking, the bedframe thumping quietly, rhythmically, with the two of them moving in pleasured tandem.

Every thrust makes Steve’s body sing – a flush spreading over him, sweat welling. He couldn’t tell any more if he was running hot or cold, his nerves only chanting _Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky_ on repeat. His husband’s breaths, panted hot and harsh against his throat, ground him a little as his eyes start to flutter as their intermingled moans of pleasure drove him a little wilder. He dug his nails further into Bucky’s shoulder blades without realizing – cutting enough to draw a few ruby drops of blood welling up from the surface of his husband’s olive skin. The crescent moon shaped cuts would be healed in a matter of minutes anyway. 

He didn’t even realize that he was chanting _“Mine, mine, mine, mine…”_ over and over again as he rocked with Bucky, stumbling along with the nearly brutal force and pace of his thrusts. His thighs were burning, his hips aching, and a deep ache set in – a bruising that would dissipate by the morning. A deep ache that felt wonderful to Steve, because Bucky was responsible.

“Yeah, Baby, yours. _Always_ yours. _Only_ yours.” Bucky rumbled against Steve’s ear, and shuddered as he revelled in the combined sensations of Steve’s nails digging into his back, and the tight, wet, heat of his husband enveloping his hard cock. He groaned, feeling the pleasure tightening in his abdomen, knowing he wasn’t too far off already. He supposed this physical reunion was never destined to last too long.

Every powerful thrust had the warmth, the heat, building within Steve. And then Bucky shifted slightly, getting more comfortable again. The change altered his angle within Steve, and on the next thrust, Bucky collided with Steve’s prostate. The sudden fire of pleasure made Steve’s eyes fly open as he half-shouted – barely covering his mouth in time before the next thrust hit that spot again. His cerulean eyes flickered, finding Bucky’s face - off to the side of his – only to see his husband grinning in that predatory way that had always meant Bucky had him cornered right where he wanted him. He groaned softly, before Bucky grabbed his leg and hiked it up higher over his waist, till Steve’s knee was up under his armpit. Each thrust pushing deeper, making every movement strike Steve’s prostate without hesitation. The fire was racing through his veins, relaxing his muscles, even as he moaned, keened, and whined with every thrust.

Steve could no longer tell if he was being quiet or not in his vocalizations – his sounds were foreign to his own ears as his hands scrabble against Bucky’s back – left on Bucky’s right shoulder blade, right on the small of Bucky’s back – stroking deftly at the dimples there and feeling his husband’s spine flexing in a feline manner with every powerful thrust. Bucky felt incredible inside of him and under his touch.

Between their bodies, Steve’s cock twitched and throbbed with interest – constantly stimulated beyond his control. He gasped, cutting off his own whine of pleasure, as he felt his balls lift and tighten. His eyes fluttered with every hard, fast, pound pulsing against that spot inside of him. He was barely able to speak, lost already to the ether and carnality. “Buh… gon… gon… cuh—“ he panted, his grip on his lover growing tighter as he danced on the edge of orgasm.

Bucky groaned long and deeply into Steve’s ear. He sank his teeth slowly but firmly into Steve’s throbbing pulse line; enough bruise the skin without breaking it open. He didn’t lighten up; continuing to pound into his husband, pushing them both further and further towards the edge. He’d given up on not thumping the bed against the wall some time before – too lost in Steve to care if Becca or the others heard the rhythm of their love making. He didn’t lighten up as he felt Steve’s body go rigid beneath him.

Steve threw his head back against the pillows as his pleasure crested. He half-howled a scream of passion as the coil of heat in his lower belly suddenly snapped. He came hard, streaking up to both of their chests as he writhed on the bed. “Don’t stop…” he panted, slowly coming down from the high, and continuing to float. He kept clenching around Bucky’s thickness.

Everything felt amazing – even in his over sensitive state. He didn’t want Bucky to stop, not yet. Not until they had both had their pleasure. Steve was floating, somewhere above his own body. He barely had the presence of mind to stroke Bucky’s dark hair, but he slipped his fingers through his husband’s curls as he moaned in a constant stream of continuing pleasure. He felt like he was hovering on the edge of a dream – silently praying that none of the last two weeks had been a dream.

Bucky only thrust for a few moments longer, before he buried his face into Steve’s throat and moaned deeply as his hips stuttered. He hiccupped slightly, trying to breathe, as his cock throbbed. He came a second later – body going rigid against Steve’s as the heat of his release flooded into Steve. He kept loosely thrusting through his orgasm, making Steve twitch as the aftershocks of his own orgasm ebbed and flowed through him.

They collapsed a moment later; Bucky no longer held up on his elbows, but lying flat and heavy against Steve’s chest as Steve’s leg dropped down from Bucky’s ribs with a boneless thump onto the old mattress. Steve relaxed further into the pillows as he sighed in content – body and mind deliciously exhausted and at peace. He basked in the feeling of Bucky’s weight draped over him and delighted in the novelty of it being familiar once again.

Both of them were still panting hard but were slowly recovering. Steve ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair again, as Bucky lovingly nuzzled the valley between Steve’s pectorals. Neither made a move – Bucky neither lifted himself off Steve, nor did Steve push him away. If anything, Bucky’s weight was a wanted and greatly missed comfort for Steve.

Drifting in and out of a light doze, neither of them cared how long had passed. Eventually, Bucky pushed himself up slowly, and Steve immediately missed the warmth of him. Bucky slowly got off the bed entirely, stumbling just a little on jellied legs as he pulled his underwear back on.

Steve, still a little pleasure drunk, frowned in the darkness. “Where ya goin’?” his voice was hoarse from crying out repeatedly.

“It’s okay, jus’ goin’ ta get us a wet cloth to clean up with.” Bucky walked up to the side of the bed and leaned down to kiss Steve’s sweaty temple, before he crept out of the room. He came back a moment later with a damp cloth, and a clean towel. Closing the door again, he came back to the bed and eased himself down on the mattress. He started with Steve; gently mopping up the mess on his abdomen, before wiping the slick and mess from between Steve’s thighs, as Steve held onto his metal hand lovingly. Steve brought Bucky’s black Vibranium hand to his lips and softly kissed his knuckles, as Bucky wiped the sticky mess from his own abdomen, before tossing the cloth into the hamper.

Steve tugged on Bucky’s hand until he made his husband overbalance and topple down onto the mattress with him. He grinned brightly as Bucky gasped softly and forced himself not to land on Steve. He grabbed up the towel that Bucky had brought along with him and snuggled up to his husband and patted them both dry, before flinging the towel away and shifting under the covers with Bucky.

Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve gently, and Steve snuggled closer hiding his face in the warm skin of his neck. Smiling, Bucky rubbed his back soothingly, and Steve hummed, completely relaxed. “Love you…” he nuzzled at Bucky’s clavicle. He brushed a soft kiss through the soft, sparse, hair dusting the top of Bucky’s chest.

“Love you too, Sweet Boy.” Bucky nosed at Steve’s golden hair, drinking in the distinctly Steve smell he’d be missing. “Good to sleep, Sweetheart.” 

Steve yawned, but he was asleep against Bucky’s chest within a moment. Bucky followed shortly after.

When morning came, it did so with a slowly dawning certainty that left the night before, the wonderful memories, in the past as the heartache of leaving took hold.

Buck awoke before the sun – lying still and despondent – as he focused on the sounds of his childhood home; the gentle crackling and popping of the old wooden floors, the settling of the house on its foundation. Everything that he had thought he’d never hear again, and now knew for certain that he would not. But it wasn’t the house; it was the knowledge that he was leaving for the last time; when they made it back to 2023, his parents would have been gone for at least fifty years – Bucky had never been able to bring himself to looking up the dates of his parents’ deaths, or even where they had been interred – if they had been interred together. He hoped they would have been, but George being Catholic and Winnie being Jewish, he knew there was a chance that they had not. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to look up his sister either; if Becca was still alive in 2023, she was an old woman – ninety-six years old. She wouldn’t have known him, not with all the changes he’d been through since he’d kissed her cheek goodbye that last morning, at the docks, in ’43. Not with her advanced age.

Steve shifted, snuggling a little closer as he slowly started to come back to the world of the waking. He hummed low and softly as he nosed at the dip between Bucky’s pectorals; nuzzling his husband gently. After a moment of quiet stillness, he stretched himself out slowly – his joints nearly-inaudibly popping and shifting back into place after sleeping the night away with his head resting on Bucky’s chest, causing him to automatically curl up and make himself smaller. But as he came to, he noticed Bucky’s slow stillness. His brows furrowed together, before he slowly opened his eyes and looked up at his husband’s face. “What’s wrong hunny?” his voice was raspy and gruff from sleep, but he turned his head and laid his cheek on the warmth of Bucky’s clavicle.

Bucky shook his head gently. “’s’just hard to leave again…” tilting his head so that he could look down at Steve, he smiled sadly. “It hurts knowing that when we get home… they’ll all be gone.”

Steve’s brows furrowed gently and he looked down – reaching so he could interlock his fingers with Bucky’s right hand. He brought the hand up gently and laid a soft, lingering, kiss over the back of Bucky’s warm hand. “I know, Buck… I know. It hurts losing family when you just got them back – I don’t need to explain that to you. But, at least you got to see them again, and say goodbye this time. And they’ll know that you’re safe in the future… and that I’m there to take care of you when you need it.”

The tears were welling in Bucky’s eyes, but he laughed softly. “Sap…” 

“Yeah, I definitely am… but you’re stuck with me as long as we live… however long that may be. A day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, a millennium. I will _always_ be there with you to carry you when you can’t go on, darling. Just like you have always been there to love me and look after me, _even _when I was a rage filled spitfire of piss and vinegar that didn’t appreciate enough just what you did, what you gave up, for me.”

“Oh… oh shut up and kiss me.” Bucky sniffed harshly to stop his tears from taking over fully.

Steve chuckled quietly as he lifted his hand and cradled Bucky’s jaw tenderly. “Always, Sweetheart.” His eyes slid closed as he leaned in and pressed his lips softly against his husband’s in the sweetest, chaste, kiss that they had shared in what felt like a lifetime; he brushed the slowly rolling tears off Bucky’s cheek with a few sweeps of his thumb.

When he eased back, Steve gently rubbed his nose against Bucky’s cheek, before snuggling closer again; draping his warm weight over his husband like a living blanket. “It’s still early; no one’s up yet. We can just lie here and commit these moments to memory.”

Bucky closed his eyes and kissed the crown of Steve’s golden head as they succumbed to the quiet of the early morning.

But eventually the time came, and as difficult as it was, Bucky pulled himself from his old bed, and got dressed, as Steve silently followed suit.

They had said their goodbyes to the Barneses the night before, had made their finally words ones of happiness, and not the pain that would come that morning. So, rather than waiting for his parents or sister to wake, Bucky picked up a sheet of paper and wrote a letter, intended to say his goodbyes again, without putting any of them through the pain of doing it face to face.

_Ma, Da,_

_I love you, always and always. You’ve been the best parents I could have ever asked for. I’m sorry I gotta leave, but this just isn’t the place for me anymore, and I’m not safe here. Please know this: I am happy and safe with Steve in the future. What my status is in 1954 proper, doesn’t matter, because he _will_ be safe and happy in the future. He will be saved, and I know this._

_Tell my niece (or nephew, or – hell, tell all of Becca’s children she’ll ever have) that they are always welcome in my home; tell them that if they need me in the future, in 2023 or any time after that, that I will be there for them. Let them know that although I am separated from them by the years, that I have always and will always love them. That if they need _anything_, I am there for them. _

_Tell the great-nieces and nephews, and the great-great-nieces and nephews – let every generation from here on out know – that their Uncle James, Bucky, Jamie, Jamesy, Jimmy, Jim, Bub, Buck, whatever they want to call me… let them know that they always have a home with me, no matter what. Neither Steve nor I will ever question it. _

_Let the children, and the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, etc. know that if they need me, I will always be there. That they will never be cast out or ignored. _

_Let them know that I love them, because I do. With all my heart, even though I have never met them. _

_Please let them know… whatever they hear of me, that that’s not _me_. That while I might seem fearsome, and dangerous… I’m not. Please let them know that I am not my abuse but the sum of all the love that you and everyone else has ever shown me. Let them know that although I am the Winter, my heart is full of nothing but love._

_This is the hardest letter I think I’ve ever had to write – I’m rambling, trying to put off the inevitable. _

_Suffice to say…_

_I love you. _

_I love you. _

_I love you. _

_Thank you for being the loving and accepting parents that you have always been. _

_Thank you for loving Steve like your own son._

_Thank you for allowing me the love of my life without judgement or condemnation. Thank you for never telling me how I feel for Steve is wrong or perverted. Thank you for never having us arrested, and never failing to let us know that we had your support. _

_Thank you for everything._

_~ Love, your little boy, Bucky. _

Wiping the tears from his eyes before they could fall and smudge the ink, Bucky set the letter down onto the worn old kitchen table.

Steve stood waiting on the other side of the kitchen, near to the door. He was holding onto both of their suitcases.

The house was quiet, and the quiet was oppressive. Bucky couldn’t remember a time in his life, besides maybe the last time he’d seen his family before he deployed, that the Barneses’ house was ever this still. But, it was the early morning, and he knew it was better if they left before anyone else awoke.

Still wiping his eyes, Bucky turned to face Steve, and smiled sadly. Steve returned the sad little smiled. Setting down one of the suitcases, he lifted his arm and held it out, inviting his husband in. Bucky went willingly, wrapping his arms around Steve’s torso and burying his face into the warmth of his neck. Steve hugged him, holding him tightly and closely for a long time; till Bucky slowly eased back again.

“Sorry,” Bucky whispered softly.

Steve shook his head and lifted his jaw enough to press a kiss against Bucky’s skin just below his hairline. “We don’t _have_ to –“

“Yes, yeah we do. We haf’ta go… as much as I love and miss my family already… I can’t stay here…”

Steve nodded, and tilted his head far enough to nuzzle into his husband’s supple cheek. “I’ll go with you, wherever. I’m sorry I ever made you question that. I love you… and while… I know it’s not the same thing as having them… you’ll always have me. I’ll never make you question that again. I’m yours, your husband and your humble servant.” He teased, but the sentiment was there. The pure adoration and affection was in his eyes.

“We should get going…” Bucky swallowed audibly around the tightening of his throat as he reached for the suitcase that Steve had set down. He picked it up and wiped at his eyes as he turned on his heel quickly.

Leaving his family never got any easier – not in 1943, and not now eighty (and eleven) years later. The trick was walking out the door and not looking back.

It was fine, Bucky supposed. He wasn’t meant to be here anyway. And though they would never see him again, his family knew that he was alive, and would eventually be safe again. It was enough for him.

Steve blinked, surprised when he heard the front door close – realizing belatedly that Bucky had literally taken a deep breath and just… left. He had to laugh a little, it was such a Bucky way of handling the pain. Healthy or unhealthy, Bucky had always forced himself through – keep going, the upset can come later. It used to be that he did it to protect Steve, back when it was actually 1926, 1938, or, 1944. But Steve didn’t need that any more, he didn’t think he did, at least.

Tightening his grip on the other suitcase, Steve quickly followed his husband out of the Barnes family home, refusing to look back.

Bucky was waiting for him outside, standing at the end of the short walkway, nearly on the sidewalk. Steve saw the burning cherry at the end of Bucky’s cigarette in the low morning light; the single dash of glimmering red in an ice blue world.

Steve stepped in close, setting the suitcase down with the one by Bucky’s feet.

It was still early, and the street, even for Brooklyn, was blessedly quiet – almost devoid of all life. Like they were the only living souls left on earth.

A few years ago, that would have been a nightmare for Steve.

Now, well. Now the thought of being the only person left on earth, as long as Bucky was with him, it didn’t seem so terrible.

Taking the chance that the darkness still afforded them, Steve set his hand on the back of his husband’s neck, still a little unsettled by the feeling of his hair shorn short in the manner it had been before he was drafted. He simply held onto Bucky’s neck for a moment, applying enough pressure to ease any knots that might have been forming. Bucky gave him an appreciative smile around his cigarette and pulled it from his lips and blew the smoke out and away from Steve – a lifetime of keeping his smoke away from Steve’s lungs was hard to forget.

“Are you going to keep smoking?” Steve asked, conversationally as Bucky took another drag on the Lucky Strike. He didn’t care one way or another – even though Bucky’s serum was a bastardized version of Erskine’s, it would prevent any damage being done by the habit. At least it would for the most part – smoke smell embedded into his hair, skin, and clothing, well that wouldn’t be stopped. But, even that, as disgusting as it could be, was something of a comfort to Steve. A little piece of Bucky before the war.

Bucky shook his head, taking one more puff before dropping the butt and grinding it beneath his shoe. He released the smoke, and Steve was reminded of a fairy tale dragon as it billowed up into the cool March air. “Nah, ‘s’my last pack.” He nudged Steve gently with his elbow. “Ready?”

“Yeah, Buck… I’m ready.” Steve smiled brightly and picked up the suitcase again.

They took off down the street together, side by side, as they had countless times before.

“So, how does this work?” Steve asked once they’d reached the Van Dyke/Van Brunt Street Station. He had no idea where they were going.

“So,” Bucky started as the made their way down to their ride. “In order to travel the time stream _without _Pym Particles, I had to find an alternate method. So – okay, ya remember when I nearly overloaded Brooklyn’s entire electrical grid back in ’36?”

Steve automatically snorted as the memory of the ten-headed lamp that Bucky had built for him flashed through his mind. “Kinda hard to forget that, Buck.”

Bucky barked out a soft laugh but nodded. “Yeah, ya got me there, pal,” he chuckled. “Anyway, the point’s that I figured out another way to break apart time. Just need a massive electrical charge and a couple’a well-placed transmitters.”

Steve’s brows furrowed as he followed Bucky, boarding the transit to the Smith Street/Livingston Street Station. “Okay,” he hedged carefully. “What happens with the right transmitters and the electrical pulse?”

“Well, first of all,” Bucky took his seat as he nodded his head to his husband as Steve followed him into sitting. “Properly positioned, they amplify and condense the electrical pulse, over and over, upon itself until the pathway between the transmitters vibrates a frequency outside of our modern measurement. Then the atoms shake themselves apart, and reality kinda… shivers, okay?” He turned to look at Steve.

Steve nodded gently, still listening. “I’m followin’.”

“Okay, so reality shivers, and a secondary pulse of electricity – from this handy little doodad right here,” Bucky shifted and leaned over, fishing a small brass and silver coloured rectangle out of his pocket. “Reverses the polarity of the transmitters and generates an electromagnetic pulse through the line. That opens a wormhole.”

A green light in the centre of it flashed along with the faint technological _ping_ing that sounded every second. There were several buttons and dials on the surface, and Steve silently noted the Art Deco style of the object – a far cry from the super futuristic designs of Tony Stark and Princess Shuri.

“Why’s it pinging?” Steve’s brows furrowed a little as he concentrated on the green light.

“Been pingin’ since last night, pal. Just means that the window is closin’ again.”

Steve nodded but suddenly paused, “Wait, how to do you control where the wormhole goes?”

“Well, goin’ back to 2023 is simple – it’s a two-way road with only two points.”

“Okay, but how did you get it to 1954 in the first place?”

Bucky shrugged a little, and the full Brooklyn drawl flooded back as he spoke. “Jus’ ‘cause I dropped outta school in ’34, don’t mean I never picked up a book again.”

Steve ducked as his shoulders shot up sheepishly. “I didn’t mean – I’m sorry, Buck… you shouldn’t have had to drop out in the first place…”

Bucky leaned his temple against Steve’s gently. “Yeah, pal, I did. I had ta be there for ya, and I wouldn’t change that choice for nothin’. I was, and am, exactly where I needed ta be, okay?”

“Okay…” Steve set his hand briefly on Bucky’s thigh, just above the knee, as he listened.

“An’ anyway. Once Shuri realized I had a mind for engineerin’ of all sorts… she took it upon herself to throw every book available at me. So that’s what I did after I was done tendin’ the goats every night, at least before our Skype calls.”

Smiling, Steve tucked his head under Bucky’s jaw for a moment. The bus was quiet at this time of the morning, and he refused to be censored for something as innocent as leaning against his best friend; they’d often sat like this on transit when they were younger. Even if it drew a few looks, no one ever said a word.

‘course, those were the days when Bucky looked both like every girl’s sweet hearted dream boy, and the mafia prize fighter who would break your face for even looking at him the wrong way.

Both were accurate interpretations of Bucky Barnes between 1931 and 1942.

“Yeah, anyway,” Bucky spoke softly for the quiet bus, as he tilted his head and leaned his cheek against Steve’s crown like he always had. “The beepin’ little remote also has a nifty dial that registers the flow of time where the wormhole opens originally. Then you just haf’ta tune the other dial to where yaw anna go, and jump in.” He yawned as they settled together.

“So,” Steve yawned shortly after Bucky did. “Where are we going? Where’s the opening?”

“Ridgewood Reservoir.”

“Queens?! We’re goin’a Queens?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“’cause Highland Park’ll be quiet, and the water’ll help amplify the signal of the transmitters when I reopen the wormhole.”

Steve nodded, staying close under Bucky’s jaw. “Where’re the transmitters?”

Bucky hummed softly. “There’s one outside Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, one is in Giza, and the third one is outside Sandover, Australia.”

“You triangulated the entire Earth?!”

“Mmhmm.”

A beat passed. “Wait,” Steve spoke slowly. “Did you… did you use… _Leylines_?”

“Sure did, pal. They do half the work for me.”

“God, you’re brilliant.” The sound of awe in Steve’s voice was genuine, and Bucky had to laugh.

“Well, I had to knock some sense into a dumb punk, remember? Had ta be smart.” Bucky kissed Steve’s temple gently.

“Don’t you ever let me be that dumb again.” Steve leaned his head back against Bucky’s shoulder so he could stretch up just enough to kiss the curve of his husband’s jaw.

“I was tryin’a let ya do what ya needed for _you_.”

“And that’s your problem, Buck. Always selfless enough to put everyone else ahead of _you_.” Steve settled against Bucky’s shoulder again.

Bucky couldn’t help but chuckle softly. “Pot callin’ the kettle black, don’t ya think?”

Steve chose not to respond to that. “Promise me… next time you even _think_ somethin’ I’m doin’ is going to go against you – against _us_ – you’ll stop me. I can’t promise I won’t be mad, but I _do _promise that I’ll listen.”

Bucky slotted the disguised fingers of his Vibranium hand through Steve’s and squeezed his hand softly. “I promise, punk.”

The rest of the early morning bus ride passed in amiable silence, and eventually after multiple transfers, they made their way into Highland Park.

It was still early, only the occasional person cutting through the park returning from a late shift the night before. Steve wanted to hold Bucky’s hand, spoiled by a life partially lived in a more accepting century, but it wasn’t the best idea now, and he knew it well enough.

It wasn’t like walking hand in hand with Peggy like it was nothing – it _was_ nothing to walk like that with his wife.

Instead, Steve walked close enough that their hands could occasionally brush together as they both supported their suitcases. It was still an amiable silence, even if the weight of what was about to happen was settling back over them. The weight of leaving the past, and everyone in it, behind once more. Steve felt like had after Tony Stark’s funeral – like he was making a choice that wasn’t necessarily right – leaving behind those that loved him, for the sake of a person he’d lost years before.

It was true, but this time he was returning _with _the right person.

It still felt a little wrong.

His gaze drifted around the park as they walked the path slowly, unwilling to draw even the attention of the few other people that were out and about at this hour. As he walked, he spotted a payphone mounted off to the side of the path, and his stomach clenched. Steve came to a halt, and grabbed Bucky’s arm gently, by the elbow. “Buck, wait.”

Brows furrowing, Bucky stopped and turned to look at Steve. “What’s wrong?”

Steve shook his head softly as he turned to look into his husband’s face. “I can’t do it…”

The fear spiked in Bucky’s heart, and it must have shone through his eyes. “Steve… come on, don’t… We don’t belong-“

Steve’s heart broke when he saw the look on his husband’s face; his gaze softened. “Oh… Oh, Buck, _no_. That’s not what I meant.” He slid his hand down Bucky’s forearm until he clasped his hand and brought it up to his face. Damn anyone watching. He kissed Bucky’s hand softly.

“Then what-“

“I can’t just _leave _them here, Buck…” Steve’s cerulean eyes locked onto Bucky’s, his gaze soft and pleading. “I can’t watch you walk away from them again, knowin’ you’ll never see each other again.”

“Steve…” Bucky breathed softly as he shook his head a little.

“You came through at two in the afternoon on March 10th, right?”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice creaked a little.

“So, shouldn’t that mean that our window to return, at least on this trip, doesn’t close until two?”

Bucky nodded gently, “It’s stable until one, and closes at two… Steve…”

“Sweetheart,” Steve intoned softly, pleading with Bucky to listen. “It’s not even quarter after seven in the morning,” he insisted softly. “Let’s call your parents… lets tell them where we are, and how it works. Let’s tell them how brilliant their little boy is… please, Bucky, _please,_” Steve was nearly begging. “Let’s bring them _with_ us…”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, to tamp down the swell of emotions washing through him again. “Steve, Becca’s _pregnant_… she’s due any day now and –“

“And doesn’t she deserve to be in a time where childbirth is even safer? Doesn’t her little boy deserve to know his uncle – uncles?” Steve quickly caught himself. “Doesn’t little Jimmy deserve not to get drafted into the Vietnam War?”

Bucky released a shaky little exhale, and Steve knew that he’d gotten through.

“Please, Sweetheart, call them… call them and tell them to get their affairs in order. Tell them to meet us here, and we can all go and be the family we should have always been.” Steve stroked his thumb softly over Bucky’s cheek, and his husband leaned into the touch for a moment.

“Alright…” Bucky’s voice was quiet and nearly broken, but there was a glimmer of hope in it.

Steve smiled softly, and touched his forehead to Bucky’s, as he held onto the man’s jaw gently.

Bucky swallowed slightly, as they stayed close together. After a moment, he set the suitcase down and released a quick little exhale. Steeling himself, he walked to the payphone and picked it up, depositing a nickel into the coin slot. He quickly dialed his parents house – their number hadn’t changed since they installed their first phone in 1926, shortly after moving to Brooklyn – the Barneses _had_ always been more well-to-do than Sarah and Steve Rogers.

It rang twice before the line connected.

“Hello?” Bucky could hear the tears in Winnie’s voice when she picked up.

“Ma…” he breathed quietly, trying to keep calm himself.

“Bucky?!” Winnie gasped softly, and Bucky knew that she was gripping the phone with both hands.

“Yeah, Ma… yeah it’s me.” Bucky sniffed, and tried to chuckle softly.

“Oh hunny… are you alright?” Winnie sniffled softly, trying to be brave and let her little boy go again.

“Steve and I are fine, Ma… but…” Bucky tried to exhale slowly to keep himself centred. “I… I want to ask if… Ma,” he swallowed tightly.

“Yes baby?” Winnie, on her end of the phone, wore a watery smile.

“Ma, I… I love you, I love you and Da, and Becca so much and…”

“Sweetheart, you can’t stay here and be in danger just because it’s hard to say goodbye.” Winnie sobbed softly. Two halves of her were at war. She wanted nothing more than to keep her little boy close but couldn’t bear the thought of him in danger just because he chose to stay where his very life and existence was a risk.

“No, Ma that’s not what I was gonna ask. I… Steve and I… Ma, will you all come with us? Please?”

There was a slight pause, as the question slowly dawned on Winnie Barnes. She gasped, and squealed in excitement, and Bucky _knew_ that she was doing her excited running-in-place dance.

“Of COURSE!” She shouted into the receiver, and Bucky quickly pulled the phone away from his ear.

“Don’t you have to check with Da –”

“No! He’ll agree! And so will Brian when Becca hears!”

“Wait, wait what about Brian’s family-“

“Orphaned by the war, Sweetheart. We’re all the family he has.”

Bucky sighed softly in relief, “good… well, not _good_.” He blushed a little.

“I know what you mean, Sweetheart. Just tell me when and where!”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile as the weight started to lift off of his shoulders and out of his heart. He just wished that he could give Steve his own mother back as well, but… Mama Winnie would have to do. “Before one this afternoon, if possible – _definitely _before two or I’ll have to overload another electrical plant,” He chuckled softly. “Highland Park, Queens. We’ll meet you at the gate?”

“We’ll be there by eleven!” Winnie spoke with resolution.

“Ma, I know it’s not easy to pack up a life and tie up loose ends, as long as it’s before two-“

“To hell with loose ends! I’m not letting my baby boy go off again!”

When Bucky and Winnie’s conversation disengaged, he walked back to Steve, to settle in to wait.

For the first hour or so, they chatted about what they planned to do once they got home. Bucky told him that he’d bought a brownstone in Brooklyn – close enough to the city, but removed enough to give them their own lives. They were retired, as far as Bucky was concerned, and he wanted it to stay that way, if possible. 

For the second hour, Steve sketched in a small journal – trying to capture his husband’s face as he hadn’t in… well, _years._

Now that the day was in full swing, there were more people milling about, meaning that the two of them needed to be more careful. While people were _perhaps _more willing to look the other way compared to the ‘30s, their relationship was still very much illegal, and would be for the next twenty-six years. So, they sat together, across from one another, on their suitcases beneath a few large trees.

Steve regretted playing gin rummy with Bucky. Every two to four minutes for the last two hours, without fail, Bucky barked out “Knock!”, or “Gin!” followed, inevitably, by “My game!”

Huffing, Steve set down his cards, and just stared at Bucky with the darkest look that he could manage.

Bucky couldn’t help but start laughing around the Lucky Strike hanging from his mouth when he saw Steve’s bitter expression. “What’s got your goat?”

“You’re cheating!”

“I am _not!_” Bucky was still laughing.

“Then let _me_ shuffle the pack this time!”

“Be my guest, pal,” Bucky held out the pack of playing cards for Steve to take.

Grumbling, albeit good-naturedly, Steve took the deck and set about shuffling them again.

It didn’t help.

Within ten minutes “My game!” came from Bucky again.

“How?! How do you keep winning?!” Steve huffed as he sat back. He was completely at a loss.

“How d’ya think I paid our rent some months?” Bucky chuckled softly as he shuffled the deck again.

“You’re a bloody card shark is what you are.” Steve laughed, causing Bucky to break out into peals of laughter all over again. The brunet nearly fell off his suitcase. Their mirth was interrupted only by a happy shriek from across the green area where they were gathered. 

Winnie Barnes was … accurate.

The Barnes family, complete Brian Proctor, and all their minimal luggage (a suitcase for each of them – plus an extra for the as-of-yet unborn child) arrived at the Brooklyn entrance Highland Park at exactly eleven in the morning.

“Ma!” Bucky scrambled to stand up as he caught sight of his parents and sibling.

Winnie was up and across the distance in a flash – running towards her son in such a spry manner that she seemed to be sixteen all over again.

Bucky just barely caught her, hugging her to his chest as he buried his face into her dark curls. “Ma…” he rubbed her back gently as he held her, maybe a little too tightly.

A moment later, George caught up with his wife, jogging over. Grinning, he threw an arm around each of them – hugging Bucky and Winnie close as he rest his cheek against his wife’s crown.

Steve smiled warmly as he watched his family. Pushing himself up from his seat on his own suitcase, he jogged over to Becca and Brian. Taking Becca’s hand gently, he supported her weight as he helped her cross the distance to her brother and parents. She grinned up at him with her other hand pressed to her belly. “Steve Rogers – or should I say Barnes?” she teased. “Always such a gentleman.”

Steve flushed a lovely pink tone as he squeezed her hand gently. “Barnes’d be best.” His voice was soft and a little humble.

Becca smiled back tenderly. “Will it be safer for the two of you where we’re going?”

Steve returned her gentle smile. “It’s not perfect, but it’s much more lenient, yeah. We can _actually _let people know we’re married.”

“I’m so happy for you, Steve. I’m so happy that you and Buggy get to be happy.” She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder.

“Aw _Becks_!” Bucky huffed softly. “Ya haven’t called me that in _years!_”

“So, kiddo, how does this work?” George broke his silence as he reached out and ruffled his son’s dark curls.

“Da!” Bucky leaned away from his father’s hand, grinning like all the sadness had melted out of his heart. “We gotta get to the Reservoir; from there I can open the gateway. Here, Ma, give me your suitcase.”

“Here, Becca, I’ll take yours.” Steve smiled gently as he turned to Brian.

Brian grinned as he juggled the three suitcases he was holding – his wife’s, his own, and the one of things for their child. “I’ve got it but thank you.”

“Nah, come on Brian, at least hand me one.”

Brian watched Steve for a moment, before giving in and nodding. He handed over one of the suitcases, which was likely Becca’s anyhow, and smiled softly. “Thank you.”

“How does the gate work?” Winnie asked as they started off along the paths towards the reservoir; George’s arm was wrapped around her waist gently. She looked to Steve for clarification.

Steve held up his hands (still holding the suitcases) dismissively and laughed. “Bucky’s the brains behind this, not me. I get it, but he’s the brilliant one that figured out the science behind it.”

Bucky smiled appreciatively, though this meant explaining it for the second time today. “Simplest way I can put it… there’s three transmitters positioned around the Earth, in 2023. With a large electrical pulse, they link together and vibrate, while a secondary pulse from a remote triggers an electromagnetic pulse that ruptures the fabric of spacetime and opens up a tunnel between two points which is navigable with a dial – like tuning a radio.”

“My boy!” George turned to look at his son, grinning. “Ever think about going back to school? Now that you can afford it? Hell you could probably teach it – always were my clever boy.”

Bucky ducked his head, though he was smiling. “Actually, yeah… I uh. I made a decision before… I applied to MIT before comin’ back to drag this sorry ass back to the future.” He nodded, with a grin, towards Steve.

Steve’s eyes widened. “You did?! Why didn’t you tell me?!” He stopped in his tracks for a moment, before starting up again, jogging a couple steps to catch up to his husband again. But he was grinning.

“’cause there were more important things than my choice to get my degree. Come on, we can talk about this later – we’re almost there.”

Ridgewood Reservoir was built on the Brooklyn-Queens boarder in 1858, to supply water for Brooklyn. When Brooklyn finally amalgamated with the City of Greater New York in 1898 and was granted access to the New York City water supply, the reservoir essentially became obsolete. Despite the fact that it would continue to be used in times of need through the twentieth century, it was last used as a water supply for a drought in the 1960s, and after a series of illegal swimming and drowning incidents, finally fully decommissioned in 1989.

Currently, in 1954, Ridgewood Reservoir was between uses. Though it was still being run at an intermediary level, the birch forest that would eventually take over the area, was already starting to sprout. It was a lovely area, but fenced in.

“Wait, how are we going to get-“ Brian started, until Bucky pulled the chain-link fence apart with his left hand. “Right… right I forgot you could do that…” he chuckled nervously.

“Oh, no that’s where I cut it when I came through two weeks ago.”

“Ah… that’s less terrifying.” Brian flicked his gaze between his wife and his in-laws, but nodded and ducked through the opening in the fence first, as Bucky held it open. The moment he was through, he turned and offered his hand for his wife.

Steve put his hand gently on Becca’s back as he helped support her on the way through the opening in the fence.

George held Winnie’s hand behind himself as he followed his daughter through the opening, bringing his wife with him.

Steve followed behind, turning and kissing Bucky softly before he ducked through the opening in the fence as well. Bucky hummed softly as he followed Steve, and pulled the fence closed behind him. He ducked passed the small group and walked along the gravel pathway towards the reservoir’s pools.

“We gotta be quick, Buck.” Steve’s eyes darted around. “Someone will notice us if we’re not…”

“Relax, Stevie. I’ve got this, okay? I’ve got this. Just help Brian hold onto my sister, and I can handle the rest.” Bucky reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the brass and silver palm-sized remote that he’d shown Steve early that morning on the bus.

Steve nodded, and slung his arm around Becca’s waist. She put her arm around his neck, much like her brother always did when Steve was smaller. Brian kept to her other side, holding her hand gently as he held the two suitcases in his other hand.

George and Winnie pressed closer together, settling so their cheeks were touching, and Winnie leaned back against her husband’s front. George watched with increased interest.

Bucky fiddled with the dials on the still pinging remote, before glancing up. He paused, and nudged all of them closer together, so they were in a tight packed circle. “Trust me?” he asked, one last time.

“Of course, Sweetie.” Winnie answered without question.

“With my life, yeah.” Steve nodded.

“Good.” Bucky pressed his thumb into the button that would send the first massive electrical pulse.

The air sparked to life; an infrasonic thrumming felt rather than heard as the transmitters – Mexico, Egypt, and Australia came back online in 2023, rumbled through their sternums. Bucky started turning the dials on the remote.

“I’m going to pulse it again, so the door opens!” Bucky called out over the roaring of the air. “When it opens, we’re going to walk through! Hold onto each other – I’ll lead! Steve! You stay at the back so no one gets disconnected!”

A spike of anxiety rose in Steve’s chest. Panicking thoughts of _what if we get separated?! What if I lose you again?!_ Slammed through him over and over again.

“Trust me!” Bucky intoned. “We’re going to be fine, Stevie! There’s no hurtling through the vortex like with the Pym Particles! I’ve stabilized the wormhole so all we have to do is _walk!_”

Steve swallowed tightly and nodded, even if he didn’t understand _how_ Bucky had managed such a feat.

“We won’t have long! The energy to stabilize it is going to burn up our remaining time before the window closes! We gotta walk as fast as we can, and the temporal winds are going to be whipping at us! Hold onto me and hold onto each other and we’ll make it through!” without another warning, Bucky slammed the second button.

The air crackled, and lightning flashed through the sky. It arched down and struck the reservoir pools multiple times in instantaneous succession. In the blink of an eye the space between the air particles pulled apart, splitting open and revealing a rift between time and space.

Becca half screamed in surprise – partially from the shock of seeing the wormhole, and partially because the fright caused her water to break. She looked down in a hurry, and saw the wet patch spreading over the crotch of her borrowed trousers. “Uh…”

“Shit!” Brian gasped in surprise. “Shit not now!”

Bucky looked down, his eyes widening in shock. “Okay! It’s okay! We’ll be through shortly! Steve! Hang onto Becca and support her! Ma, take my hand! Da you hold onto Ma, and Brian you hold Becca’s hand and hold onto Da!”

“Good lord, and I thought _you _wanted to come out at an inopportune moment!” Winnie laughed nervously but took a hold of her son’s hand and grabbed her husband with the other hand.

When they were all linked together, even though Becca wanted to curl in on herself as a contraction ripped through her body, Bucky took a deep breath and stepped into the opening of the portal.

The temporal winds were strong – instantly ripping at his hair and clothing like the outer edges of a tornado, but he lowered his head, facing into the winds, as he started pressing forward fighting against the hurricane force. He knew it wasn’t far – he could _see _the light at the other side of the time passage – 2023 glimmered in the near distance. Less than half a kilometer.

Honestly, falling through the temporal vortex had been easier, if Bucky was being honest. But he’d stabilized the portal to walk, knowing it was safer for his heavily pregnant sister, and it would prevent any of them from getting separated. While he was positive that the portal only opened in March of 1954 and May of 2023, he wasn’t willing to risk any of his family on it. If it had been just he and Steve, like originally planned, falling and being pulled through the vortex would have been easy enough – hold hands and spin around each other until 2023’s gravity grabbed onto them and pulled them through.

Walking, as difficult as it was, was safer.

Bucky pushed through, head down and into the window as he lead the group of travelers – like pushing through a Brooklyn blizzard to get to school – leading as he always had, so that the others, like Steve, were sheltered from the worst by the breadth of his body.

He tried not to worry about any of them. Becca would be alright – waiting on the other side was Bruce. They would be safe and sound, and in the capable hands of the medical staff.

It seemed as though it took forever – each forward step was hard fought for, until finally Bucky was able to pull them through out of the rift, into 2023. He whipped around, watching the portal snap closed as lightning flashed in the sky overhead. It closed the second that Steve made it out, pushing Becca and Brian ahead of himself.

Bucky nearly collapsed with relief; his legs turned to jelly.

Risking himself in the temporal desert had been one thing, but risking his entire family, well, that had been another.

Without missing a beat, he dashed back to Steve, releasing his grip on his mother’s hand as he went, and caught his husband around his narrow waist. He reefed and lifted Steve up into the air as if his weight was nothing; he spun them around, as Steve gasped in shock, and started to laugh.

“Buck! Buck put me down!”

“Ahem…” Bruce’s soft voice cut through the darkness.

Steve turned his head to look at Bruce, as Bucky still held him aloft; Bucky’s cheek was pressed against his upper abdomen. “Bruce!”

“Welcome back, Steve.” He smiled softly. “It’s good to see you.”

“Uh… not to be a bother, but my wife is going into labour,” Brian started.

Bruce’s eyes widened as he turned to look at the four extra people that Bucky had brought with him. He opened his mouth to ask who they were, when he saw Becca double over and cringe again as she fought with another contraction. The split moment that he saw her face, answered his question. “You brought your family back…” His voice was full of awe, before he broke free of it and darted towards the young woman. “Hi, Miss. Barnes-“

“Becca,” she grit out between clenched teeth as amiably as she could. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Becca. I’m Bruce Banner; can you tell me how far apart your contractions are?”

“About ten minutes.” She exhaled slowly as she righted herself.

“Her water broke just before we came through.” Bucky, who had put Steve down, walked over. He clapped Brian on the shoulder gently, “She’s in good hands.”

Together, they got Becca into the compound.

Steve looked around, checking the clocks. While he understood how time travel worked, it was still strange to have just left 11 am, to arrive at 4 am, in the pitch black.

As Becca was being settled into the medical wing, Bucky turned to Steve – the two of them standing outside of the room while Bruce, Becca, Brian, Winnie, and George were inside; eventually Winnie and George would come back out, but for the moment they stayed with their daughter and son-in-law.

“Right on time,” Bucky spoke as he checked his watch.

“Hm?” Steve hummed softly and finally tore his eyes away from the observation window, turning instead to look at his husband. “Right on time for what?”

Bucky shook his head gently. “Nothing, just the two weeks I spent in ’54… was only fourteen hours here. My calculations were right.” He kept his eyes on the observation window, watching his mother stroke his sister’s sweating forehead as Bruce moved around, checking her vitals. He leaned sideways, just enough to lay his head on Steve’s shoulder gently as he folded his arms over his chest.

“I’m so proud of you… can … can we talk about MIT?” Steve tilted his head just enough to rest his jaw on his husband’s dark curls.

Bucky smiled softly as his eyes slid shut. “Not much to tell; I applied shortly after you left… I’ve been accepted into the second year of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science undergraduate program for next September – I missed the cut-off date for this year.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut as he smiled warmly; heart fluttering with love and affection. “I’m so proud of you, jerk.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty proud of me too, punk.” Bucky laughed and unfolded his arms before slinging one around Steve’s neck. “What about you, pal? Still wanna teach art to high school students?”

“God, no.” the answer left Steve before he realized what he was saying. His eyes widened in surprise. “Uh…”

Bucky lifted his head off of Steve’s shoulder, and watched him for a moment – watching as Steve’s face and neck flushed pink with embarrassment. He shrugged easily. “Than don’t. Our military pensions alone have us in the black for several life times. You can do whatever you want, even if that’s just hangin’ around our apartment.”

Steve snorted softly, “So, what, I’ll be your Kept Man?”

“Somethin’ like that, punk.” Bucky, grinning, pressed a soft kiss to Steve’s lips.

James “Jamie” Proctor was born on May 28th, 2023, at 10:55 am.

Steve saw George and Winnie to one of the guest rooms on his floor of the compound; this the secondary, smaller, “vacation” compound that had been untouched by Thanos.

When he came back, Becca and Brian were both passed out, exhausted – from the labour and the emotional taxation of leaving their own time behind to come forward with the Barneses.

Bucky was standing in his sister’s infirmary room; holding the small blue-bundle to his chest as he gently swayed back and forth. He sang _Polkadots and Moonbeams_ softly, in a sweet rumble just barely above a whisper. The baby boy in his arms was drifting off to sleep, lulled by the warmth and soft voice of his uncle.

Steve’s breath caught in his throat as he watched the simple interaction. His heart fluttered, so full of love. Swallowing tightly, he quietly stepped up beside his husband – peeking over his shoulder to watch the baby boy sleep. He ended up resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder as he carefully eased his arms around Bucky’s waist, pulling him slowly back against him, until they stood, gently swaying together.

“Have you ever thought about having children?” Steve asked quietly. After four years of marriage with Peggy, in a time where children were naturally expected, seeing the baby got him thinking of what possibilities might exist for he and Bucky in the future.

Bucky turned to look at him with a warm smile. He kissed his husband tenderly as Jamie snuggled just a little further into his warmth. When he eased back, he was smiling tiredly; drained from the last eighty or so years.

“Yeah, Stevie… I’d like that, one day.”

A sort of happiness that Steve never thought he’d get to experience washed over him. It flowed through him, relaxing his muscles the way whisky used to and the world suddenly felt right – that no matter what had happened, no matter what he had done – he was where he was meant to be.

Struck by a sudden, strong, surge of affection for his husband, Steve nuzzled at Bucky’s short hair – burying his face as deeply as he could in the curls at the back of Bucky’s head.

Bucky smiled softly, letting Steve nuzzle and nose at him as he wanted. “Don’t worry, pal… it’ll grow back, I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> In this house we stan a supportive Barnes family. I have zero doubt that Winnie and George would have supported Bucky no matter what - they just wanted him to be happy - hell they just wanted both boys to be happy, because they definitely viewed Steve as another son. They also raised their boy right, so of course they are supportive of him. 
> 
> Also, headcanon cast for Winnie Barnes is Alex Kingston, while George Barnes is Viggo Mortensen.
> 
> I apologize for any tears shed during this fic - I cried too.


End file.
